Mercato Madness: Swansea City back in for "unsettled" Fernandez

Oh, Swansea City. You're so crazy. And annoying. Mostly the annoying thing.

Days before Napoli completed the loan signing of Michu from Swansea, a rumor popped out of seemingly nowhere that the Welsh side wanted to buy Federico Fernandez. We laughed it off at the time, but now it's starting to sound like a thing that Swansea is taking seriously.

Both the Daily Mirror and Gianluca Di Marzio are reporting that the Swans have come back with a €10 million bid to try to pry the Argentine defender out of Napoli's grasp. Napoli have, of course, rejected the bid, but both reports characterize Swansea as rather determined to buy Fernandez.

Especially after how Swansea and their chairman, Huw Jenkins, dragged out the Michu deal for no apparent reason, this news is pretty dang annoying. Fernandez was Napoli's best defender in the second half of the season once he settled in to the lineup and Raul Albiol started to fade a bit. If anything, Napoli need to add another defender; they certainly can't afford the loss of one of their best men at the back.

Perhaps more annoyingly, the Mirror's report goes on at some length about how "unsettled" Fernandez is in Napoli, without actually giving much of a reason why. They completely gloss over the fact that he developed a good and trusting relationship with Rafa Benitez, and became one of the club's most important players over the last year. But no, let's ignore all that, he had a bad relationship with Napoli's last manager and that surely means he wants out!

Poppycock.

Swansea are expected to come back with another bid, but unless they blow Riccardo Bigon and Aurelio De Laurentiis out of the water, don't expect them to sell. Kalidou Koulibaly has impressed this pre-season, but is still quite raw. If Henrique were good enough to take over Fernandez' starting role, you could maybe see a reason to relent and sell, but he's not, so there's none.