Laudrup Explains Reasons To Cut Squad

Swansea City manager Michael Laudrup has given his reasons for why he wants to cut the squad down to 22 or 23 players ahead of the new season.

The 48 year-old stated some weeks ago that he intends to significantly cut the size of his playing squad before the Summer transfer window closes at the end of the month.

With 35 senior players currently on the books, including a number of youngsters, Laudrup has a lot of work to do over the next few weeks.

Not only that, but he's still looking to make one or two more signings this month.

Laudrup made a number of logical statements that made plenty of sense to support his decision to cut the squad. His reasons included that every player would feel that they have genuine chance of first team football - which would help maintain their motivation. Also he feels it's difficult to work with so many players on the training pitch.

He explained them in more detail to the Evening Post:

"The idea is to work with 22 or maximum 23 players, and there are a lot of reasons for that,"

"First of all, you will then have a squad where everybody feels they are close to the 18-man squad for each game.

"If you have 25 players, you have to leave out seven every time and that`s too many.

"If you are always one of the seven, after three months you will say, 'What am I doing here?`.

"That`s one part of it, another part is to do with the youngsters.

"If they see 25 players in the first squad they think it is very difficult to break into it.

"But if it is smaller and you have three or four injuries, one or two of the young players can come into the first-team squad and they will be happy that it`s not impossible to get there.

"The third reason is that it`s impossible to practise with 30 players. You will have to have some players doing other things, and you cannot have that for too long because they will lose their motivation, and that`s not good for anyone."

Laudrup says he will assess his squad and make his decisions based on their performances and training, and adds that he will give every single player a fair opportunity to prove their worth to the team.

"Everyone starts out the same in pre-season,"

"The market is open until August 31 and a lot of things can happen in that time — a lot of things can happen in the last week of the window.

"The fair thing to do is to look at everyone in training and in some games. Eventually we will reach a moment where we have to make some decisions."

"You have to be honest with everybody,"

"If we have three or four players in one position, then at least you have to tell the one who is No. 4.

"If he says, 'OK, but I still want to stay and compete`, we have to accept that and I will always do that.

"But the idea for me is to work with 22 or 23 players."

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