Wolverhampton Wanderers confirmed on Friday that Ryan Bennett joined Swansea City on a permanent deal, ending his three-year stay at Molineux.
The 30-year-old’s stock has taken a big hit in the last year. He’s gone from playing Europa League football in December 2019 to playing in the Championship now, so what happened?
Frozen out in only two weeks
Bennett made 19/40 appearances in all competitions for Wolves last season – 11/24 in the Premier League, 6/14 in the Europa League and 2/2 in the EFL Cup. He made the matchday squad in 70% of our games before we loaned him out to Leicester City, so his departure in January was surprising.
Bennett played a full 90 minutes in our final Europa League group game (4-0 win over Besiktas) on December 12, 2019 and started consecutive Premier League games (1-0 defeat to Liverpool and 2-1 defeat to Watford) on January 1 and 11.
The 30-year-old was then an unused substitute in our FA Cup defeat to Manchester United on January 15 but was loaned out to Leicester just over two weeks later. No replacement was brought in either, so the decision was bemusing.
Bennett didn’t play for the Foxes until June and was only on the winning team twice, so he didn’t exactly have the desired impact.
Could we have used him for backup?
I think so. We have Conor Coady, Romain Saiss, Willy Boly and Max Kilman at our disposal, but Bennett would be useful in a backup role as Nuno Espirito Santo likes to play with three central defenders. New-boy Marcal is a makeshift option, so maybe Nuno feels we don’t need Bennett as well.
The 30-year-old may not have wanted to waste away on the bench at his age either, so you can see both sides of the argument. I know I’m not alone in thinking that Bennett still had a lot to offer at the top level, so it’s sad to see him in the Championship.
Leicester wanted a look at him in the New Year, but now he’s only good enough for Swansea? Seems strange to me. I hope he fares well at the Liberty Stadium, anyway.
In other news, Max Kilman has uncertain future at Wolves but we can’t afford to let him leave
