Swansea City manager Luke Williams is keen to “move forward” from what has been a disappointing 2023/24 season at the Swansea.com stadium.

Speaking after his side’s final day home defeat at the hands of fellow mid-table floaters Millwall, Williams gave no impression that he or anyone at the club would rest on their laurels in the off season.

“If anyone felt like there wasn’t work to do [for next season] then they must be crazy,” he said.

“We have to keep control, make more chances, be more clinical and concede less chances.

“It’s as simple as that because much of our performances this season suggests that we should be able to do that with time.”

Upon taking over, Williams’ first seven games saw just one win and six defeats, but his side have shown signs of progress since a chastening 4-0 defeat at home to Leeds in February.

Since then, Swansea have won six league games and were on an excellent run before the disappointment of the final day.

Williams is fully aware of how far Swansea have come, and need to go to improve and look towards their main goal: play-offs.

“I think we have come a long way from the beginning of my reign here,” added Williams

“We take the ball off the opposition pretty well and then we’re able to build up well with the ball. We get the ball in the final third well but need to find more solutions to scoring goals.”

A lack of goals has been an issue all season for Swansea. Bournemouth loanee Jamal Lowe is top scorer with 9, while £2.5 million man Jerry Yates has disappointed with just 8.

There was an obvious explosion of frustration for Yates on the final day as he received a red card against Millwall. Having started on the bench, Yates came on with fifteen minutes to go and was sent off within ten minutes for what looked like an attempted punch at Millwall centre half Japhet Tanganga.

Carwyn Bowen, creator of Swansea City unofficial content account Only Swans, was scathing in his assessment of Swansea’s recent transfer business.

“£2.5 million on one striker who averages nine touches a game [Jerry Yates from Blackpool] and simply doesn’t look fit to play for this football club,” said Bowen.

“He was completely miss-profiled and can’t play in a one striker formation so god knows why we signed him.”

“Then the other striker [Mykola Kuharevich], another £2 million spent on him potentially and he’s barely seen the pitch, he sits in the same row as me for every single Swansea game because he doesn’t play.”

“It was damming transfer business, especially when signed by a new sporting director.”

“The January players were players that fit the profile a bit more but we still need to rectify this poor business from last season.”

The number of decisions made by the Swansea hierarchy that have backfired means that, according to TalkSport‘s Laurence Mora, the club have a “summer of problems” coming to them.

“Some of the decisions over the last 12 months have blown my mind, they’ve made some bad decisions in the last couple of years but in the last 12 months they’ve been phenomenally bad,” More said on the Sportin Wales Podcast.

“Andy Coleman came in as chairman and talked a good game, but the mess with Russell Martin around him leaving the club is an embarrassment.

“I see a real summer of problems…sorry Swansea fans!

“Are they going to splash the cash? Absolutely not. They’ve got to remove people from the books. Williams has had half a season to look at his players now, he knows which ones he wants, he’ll have gone through it with Coleman.”

“I don’t think they’ll be fishing in the pool of the Championship, they’ll be looking at League One and League Two and teams like that which they can get a bargain from.”

There are some success stories in Swansea’s recruitment this season. Full-backs Josh Tymon and Josh Key have generally proved to be good acquisitions and, combined with Harry Darling and Ben Cabango, have formed a mean defence this season.

Carl Rushworth, Brighton loanee and Swansea’s player of the season, will be returning to his parent club and Williams needs to look for another new no.1.

Along with a goalkeeper, Swansea need to be focusing recruitment on midfielders, wingers, and strikers, as well as adding depth to the squad.

It sounds like a lot, and it is. The club are well aware that the most of squad is a bottom-half quality. The question is whether Williams will get what he wants in the summer.

Bowen is quietly confident that the decision to bring Williams in from Notts County was the correct one. But he is under no illusions that the squad needs some serious changes for Swansea to be a top-half team next season.

“Since we’ve brought in Luke Williams, we’ve brought in some more exciting players than we had in the summer and it looks more positive now,” he said.

“The midfielder to go next to Grimes has to be one of our first priorities, we’ve been linked to Aberdeen midfielder Connor Baron, I don’t hate it, we usually do well when we sign from Scotland.”

Mora, though, is more pessimistic about the work Swansea need to do away from the pitch this summer.

“This is what worries me about the Swansea summer transfer market,” he warned.

“Liam Cullen is almost out of contract is not getting a long-term deal, not a better paid deal, just an extension and has to go and prove himself again. I do worry that financially they haven’t got the money to push them on.

“Whether we see the likes of Joe Allen there next year, I remain unconvinced whether that will continue.

“It depends if the manager wants him and whether Joe fits. He’s been terrific this season in the bits I’ve seen of him but the body is the body and he’s done a lot of hard yards.”

The good news for Swansea fans is that Luke Williams is fully aware of how much the club need to do.

“There is a lot of work to be done,” said Williams

“If we are not prepared to work hard after a very, very average season, then we are in the wrong place mentally if we think haven’t got a lot of work to do, because we have.

“We have a lot of players to bring in, for sure.

“I am determined to do everything to try to make that a reality and there’s going to be a lot of things that we have to get to make that possible.”