How Swansea City could free up £24.5k on their wage bill in January | OneFootball

Swansea City could free up some considerable space on their wage bill be offloading fringe players in January

Despite having a small squad and limited resources, Swansea City have punched above their weight under Luke Williams this season, and the January transfer window is set to be a pivotal month for the club.

Swansea are under new ownership, and while they don't possess the funds that some of their Championship rivals do to go and out and spend in the transfer window, a couple of shrewd deals could well be enough for Williams' side to make the next step.

A way of increasing funds in January to bring in new players would be offloading fringe players who have barely featured this season, particularly high earners.

With that in mind, here is how Swansea City could free up £24,500 a week in January to recruit new players.

Sell Kristian Pedersen

£18,000 a week

Kristian Pedersen has barely featured for Swansea since joining from German side FC Koln last summer, and offloading the Danish international could free up a significant amount of money.

Using Capology, Pedersen is estimated to be earning a weekly wage of £18,000, making him Swansea's fourth-highest earner, not an ideal situation for someone who has played just a handful of games in 18 months at the club.

Swansea certainly aren't in a position to be paying someone £18,000 a week if they're not a regular starter, and that is likely why Pedersen was loaned to Sheffield Wednesday last January.

Pedersen is a capable Championship defender and Williams has complimented him before, but he was Michael Duff's signing, not Williams' and he doesn't quite fit in to the way that Swansea play.

He hasn't been helped by injury this season, which caused him to be unavailable for a couple of weeks, but with Josh Tymon making the left-back spell his own, and Ben Cabango and Harry Darling impressing at centre-back, he's been unable to force his way into the starting XI.

Pedersen's estimated £18,000 a week wage could almost certainly be used in better ways and January provides the perfect opportunity to part ways with the former Birmingham City man.

He's out of contract with Swansea at the end of the season anyway, and the experienced defender will surely want to leave in January to play regular football.

Cancel Nelson Abbey's loan

£6,500 a week

Nelson Abbey is reportedly earning a weekly wage of £6,500 at Swansea City on loan from Olympiacos, and it's fair to say that he's endured a tough time in south Wales.

Former Reading man Abbey just hasn't featured for Williams' side, and he's even struggled to make the matchday squad in recent weeks showing that he has no future at the club past January.

It's hard to envisage a situation where Abbey is a Swansea player come the shutting of the transfer window, and it looks likely that he'll be recalled by his parent club Olympiacos as they can't be happy with his situation at the moment.

However, Abbey returning to Greece could be a positive for Swansea as it would free up a further £6,500 in weekly wages, and that coupled with Pedersen's £18,000 would give them £24,500 a week to potentially spend on wages.

Swansea's highest earner, Matt Grimes, reportedly earns a weekly wage of £22,500, showing just how much money is currently being wasted on players who don't feature, and what they could potentially bring in with that sort of money.

According to Capology, Swansea's average weekly wage is £8,563, so they could even bring in two or three decent first-team players using the money that they are currently spending on Pedersen and Abbey.