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Last weekend, something happened for only the sixth time in 2021. John Swift started a Championship football match.
It didn’t take long for him to provide a reminder of the quality he possesses. On 31 minutes, he received the ball on the left hand side outside the box and delivered a pinpoint delivery into Yakou Meite to head home and give Reading the lead against Swansea.
It looked so simple, but often that’s what Swift does: make the sublime seem easy. The vision, the weight of the ball and the precision were all perfect. It was pure class.
Inevitably, on an afternoon when Reading’s playoff dreams were ended for good, it begged the question whether this season would have panned out differently – more successfully – if Swift had been available more often.
The midfielder has made just 12 appearances this season, owing to three months out with a hamstring injury between September and December and then another two months out with another hamstring injury between February and April.
There’s no doubt that Reading have missed him. When at full fitness, Swift is one of the best midfielders in the Championship with his creativity, passing and ability to control games.
The Royals have looked well short of creativity in particular in the last few months, with their late season slump being characterised by slow play and limited attacking urgency. Chances have been at a minimum and there has been little spark.
This is not necessarily a criticism of those who have played – fatigue has clearly been a factor in this gruelling season and Alfa Semedo is not the answer to those problems – but it does highlight the void Swift leaves.
But the 26-year-old’s quality and what he brings to Reading is a given. The big ‘if’ is the likelihood of him staying fit.
You can wonder all you like how the Royals would have done with Swift available all season, but it is almost a moot point because the chance of that happening was pretty much nil.
The current campaign has been Swift’s worst for injuries in a Reading shirt, but he has been sidelined for at least a portion of each of his seasons in blue and white. That includes a month of 2016/17 with an ankle problem and the final month of 2018/19 after hip surgery.
Most worryingly, and the most similar to this season, was 2017/18 when Swift missed a total of four months with five separate hamstring injuries throughout the campaign.
That is clearly where his main issue lies, and with the hamstrings being a notorious reoccurring injury, the likelihood of it happening again seems high.
As Reading enter a summer where it seems they are simply going to have to sell players to keep their finances in check, Swift will be seen as one of their most valuable assets.
Sheffield United tried hard to get him last year, but Dai Yongge stood firm. Will it be worth the same effort to keep him around this time?
You probably couldn’t ask for a better creative player to have in your team when fit, but he’s a big player on big wages to be carrying in your squad if he is going to spend half the season on the sidelines.
By Olly Allen
