Swindon Town are hoping to add more creativity to their team through the loan signing of Joel Cotterill from Swansea City – can he be the fulcrum?

Marcus Bignot echoed the comments of Swindon Town fans across pre-season after the defeat to Eastleigh when he said that the team was lacking in creativity as they struggled to break down the National League side’s low block.

Following the game he said: “[What did you make of the team’s chance creation?] Well, it wasn’t there today and everyone who came today will have seen that.

“We do believe that we have got someone who we have been monitoring for a long, long time who will certainly help us in that [creative] department. Hopefully, that will be done by the beginning of the week.”

That someone turned out to be Swansea’s Cotterill, who joins after earning a League Two medal with Stockport County last season, although his game time was very limited with the Hatters. The 19-year-old only played 92 minutes across nine appearances for the eventual champions, scoring a fine goal from outside the box against Sutton United, as well as setting one up against Crawley Town. He has played more competitive football for Wales Under-21s than he did in League Two last season.

Jamie Russell said when the signing was announced that he was pleased to have secured that technical midfielder who also provides some versatility to the midfield, although most of his play came as the advanced midfielder in Stockport’s 352, the role he seems most likely to fill at Swindon.

 

 

The Head of Football said: “We have tracked Joel for over a year and have been really impressed with how he has developed.

"Recently we played Swansea as part of our pre-season programme and Joel showed great technical ability and maturity above his years.”

Russ Johnson of The Scarf Bergara Wore podcast explained to The Adver that Cotterill was an exciting player with the potential to fill the hole Swindon are looking for, however, unsurprisingly, at 19 there is some growth needed.

He said: “His best position for me was when he pushed up and was in that attack role, he’s got very good feet but he was quite easily pushed off the ball - after a pre-season bulking up who knows.

“In terms of creativity he’s got loads of it, and he’s definitely a future star in the making but I just think he was a small fish last season with the team we had [pushing for the league title]. He’s definitely more likely to contribute towards goals than he is defensively! We probably only saw a very small snippet of what he’s actually capable of.”

At least positionally, he seems to fit the hole in Mark Kennedy’s midfield alongside Nnamdi Ofoborh at the base and Ollie Clarke as something of a shuttler as the advanced midfielder that he always used at Lincoln City. Cotterill is likely to get forward into the attacking line and look to link up with the wing-backs and the front two.

The big question mark around this signing is his lack of experience of senior football. Russell and Kennedy spoke previously about wanting players on their second loan as it will have helped them to adapt and this will be a big test of that theory. Johnson said that it was tough for him to give much detail on Cotterill because of his lack of game time at Stockport and if he is to succeed at Swindon then he will need to have learned and grown from that experience.