**Kaelan Casey, on loan at Swansea from West Ham shines against Manchester City in the Carabao Cup, despite defeat.**
Swansea City fans have been raving about Kaelan Casey’s performance last night on social media, despite conceding three goals and losing 3-1 to Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City. He won 100% of both his ground and aerial duals and also had a monstrous 21 defensive contributions. These are things our current options in Kilman and Todibo cannot seem to do.
Casey also an 80% pass accuracy against a high-pressing City team and didn’t commit a single foul, this is the type of calmness West Ham could really do with at the back.
Many Hammers fans though Casey would stick around this season after Graham Potter used him during pre-season, however, he ended up moving to Swansea City on a season-long loan, a move that could really help his development.
The defender recently turned 21 years old, and there is a running joke that he has two birthdays because the club accidently wished him a happy birthday on Sunday, despite his birthday being on Tuesday. The club deleted it and reposted it again on Tuesday, the Swansea social media admin joked about it saying ‘second birthday in a week’ as they wished him a happy birthday on the correct day.
Casey has struggled for minutes with the Swans so far in the Championship. He’s played in and started every single match in the Carabao Cup this season, playing 90 minutes in their 3-2 in over Nottingham Forest in the third round before losing to City.
The Brentwood-born central defender is yet to start in the Championship, he’s made three appearances, all of the bench, totalling in just 22 minutes. However, this isn’t going to be like some of the failed loans we’ve had in the past where they’re frozen out. Swansea have a good defence, they have the joint fifth best defence in the Championship so far this season, so Casey has to earn his spot, and his performance last night is only going to help with that.
If he manages to break into that first-team before January and we can’t sign a new central defender in the transfer window for whatever reason, it could be worth looking into recalling the defender because we definitely need new personnel in the position. However, it would be best for his development if we can keep him in the Championship playing regularly. And who knows, we might need a Championship-proven centre-back next year.