Michael Laudrup aiming to trim down his Swansea City squad

Michael Laudrup has revealed he wants to cut down his Swansea City squad to 22 or 23 players ahead of the new Premier League campaign.

The 48-year-old, who replaced Brendan Rodgers as manager at the Liberty Stadium in June, is facing a fight to keep hold of midfielder Joe Allen amid interest from Liverpool.

The former Getafe manager is keen to foster a tight-knit unit and is looking to reduce the number of players in his squad before the transfer window closes.

“The idea is to work with 22 or maximum 23 players, and there are a lot of reasons for that,” Laudrup told the South Wales Evening Post.

“First of all, you will then have a squad where everybody feels they are close to the 18-man squad for each game.

“If you have 25 players, you have to leave out seven every time and that’s too many. If you are always one of the seven, after three months you will say, ‘What am I doing here?’

“That’s one part of it, another part is to do with the youngsters. If they see 25 players in the first squad they think it is very difficult to break into it.

“But if it is smaller and you have three or four injuries, one or two of the young players can come into the first-team squad and they will be happy that it’s not impossible to get there.

“The third reason is that it’s impossible to practise with 30 players.

“You will have to have some players doing other things, and you cannot have that for too long because they will lose their motivation, and that’s not good for anyone.”

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