POTTER’S FIRST GAME IN NEW ERA FOR SWANS
POTTER TAKES CHARGE OF HIS FIRST COMPETITIVE GAME AS LIFE IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP KICKS-OFF AT SHEFFIELD UNITED
FROM turning down the chance to play Europa League football to linking up with a familiar face, it’s already been quite a summer for new Swansea City signing Barrie McKay.
Before Swansea made their interest known in the 23-year-old – who has joined from Nottingham Forest and is in line to make his debut at Sheffield United – the winger had looked destined for his first experience of continental football.
The Scotland international had the offer of joining Olympiacos, one of the biggest clubs in Greece, who had just finished third in the top-flight to secure qualification for European football. McKay even went out to Greece to meet with club officials and look over the facilities.
But the chance to prove a point in the Championship nagged away at him following a season of frustration at Nottingham Forest where a managerial change put him on the back foot.
And so he did not need much convincing when Graham Potter sold him his vision for a reboot of Swansea City.
It also helped that McKay had a familiar face to welcome him in the form of a striker he will be hoping to form a productive partnership with: Oli McBurnie.
The pair have featured together for Scotland Under-21s, and have a shared bond as Rangers supporters, with McKay having represented the Ibrox club before heading to Forest.
And McKay has every intention of ensuring Swansea’s Scottish combination is a successful one.
“I know Oli well. He says he is a big Rangers fan and he puts it all over his Twitter,” says McKay.
“I’m not quite as bad as that, especially putting things on Twitter but I am a big Rangers fan as well.
“I’ve played with him at Scotland Under-21 level and we linked up quite well. If I can bring that sort of form here and make an impact it would be a bonus.
“He’s been great with me since I arrived, he’s helped me settle into the club. It does help when you go somewhere new if there’s someone you already know and I am sure it can help on the field.”
While delighted to link up with McBurnie, it is clear that new manager Potter made quite an impression on McKay when it came down to the decision over where to move next. So much so that any thoughts of European football were quickly put out of his head, and he admits he is a man who has a point to prove after his Forest frustrations.
“The manager just shared his views on how he wanted me to play and the way the club was going to play. The whole meeting up stage went very well,” he said.
“Sometimes you just know and you get a good feel about somebody. That’s how it was really.
“The way he wants to play suits me. Look at my height it’s not going to help me if I am playing for a team who is just shunting the ball upfield.
“For me to come here and play for a manager with Graham’s philosophy is playing to my strengths.
“I had other offers. I went out to Olympiacos and had a look around the facilities, there was interest in me but once I knew that Swansea were interested I kind of just looked to coming here and prove myself here.
“I wanted to show what I can do in the Championship, things went really well at Forest for six months and then the change of manager did not really work in my favour.
“It’s just the way football is, the harsh reality is your career goes on the opinion of one guy and unfortunately for me, his opinion was different to the last manager.
“So I want to show I can do well at this level over a full season, not just six months.
“It was tough for me, I had good people around me helping me. I trained hard every day and did my best but it did not matter what I did, I knew I was not going to play at the weekend. That’s how it goes, but I want to take this opportunity.”
Some players could easily have been put off given the words ‘rebuilding’ and ‘restructuring’ are inevitably part of the Swansea vocabulary after a run of miserable seasons culminated in relegation from the Premier League.
But McKay is no stranger to taking the long-term view given his experience during a tumultuous time in the history of Rangers.
The club were demoted to Scotland’s bottom tier in 2012 following forced liquidation, with McKay and a number of young players tasked with setting the once-mighty Gers on their route back to the top-flight.
“I understand what it means to be part of a long-term project, we had to rebuild at Rangers,” he said.
“This is not as extreme as that, but when we went down the divisions the idea was always to have a young squad, with a style of play and look to work our way back up to the top.
“As you play together more and get things together then it only gets better over time and that is important for us as well.
“People realise there is a rebuilding job to do but we want to give them something to cheer about.
“I might not have got my chance if the big-name players had all stayed so it actually worked in my favour. I had the opportunity and I took it.
“When you get those chances you desperately want to take them and do well, especially when I think about how influential my family have been in getting me to this point.
“My mother, father and brothers were a big part of me getting here.
“I could go away and play a good game, but they would still find things for me to improve on or be critical of.
“It made me a better player because no-one would just say to me ‘you were brilliant’. It was more ‘you were alright, but you can work on these things’, which was a real motivation and it meant I worked on my game.”