Transfer news: USMNT and Seattle Sounders forward Jordan Morris is in talks with Swansea City over a six-month loan deal as the EFL Championship chases promotion back to the Premier League, according to a report from the Telegraph.
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Morris, 26, has starred for Seattle, where he has won two MLS Cups and been to two more finals, since signing as a homegrown played in 2016. The Seattle native has scored double-digit goals in three of his four healthy seasons (12 in 2016, and 10 each in 2019 and 2020) with a full season missed in 2018 after tearing his ACL in the season-opening game. He is also a mainstay in the USMNT with 10 goals in nearly 40 appearances for country.
Morris is a fairly versatile player highly capable of playing as a center forward, though he has featured almost exclusively as a left-sided attacker, enabling him to cut inside onto his favored right foot. He is also somewhat capable of playing on the right side as more of a winger, though he lacks the first-step burst to beat most defenders one-on-one which makes him less effective when doing so, and his well-known lack of a left foot renders him one-dimensional on the right.
With Swansea City currently occupying the second automatic promotion place in the Championship at the halfway point (23 of 46 games played) of the 2020-21 season, the club is seemingly looking to bolster its goal-scoring credentials which are merely 10th-best (27 goals scored) in the league at present. The Swans do, however, possess the Championship’s best defensive record (13 goals conceded) by a decent margin with Watford second-best at 17.
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The Telegraph also reports that Morris has offers from multiple Bundesliga clubs, which makes his preference (reportedly) to join Swansea quite interesting. As far as adaptation goes, adjusting to life in England will be much easier for an American moving abroad for the first time, compared to any country which speaks a different language.
There’s also the matter of joining a second-division side — one with massive expectations — which will ask of Morris an instant impact in order to return to the Premier League, compared to joining a (likely) bottom-half side and a potential relegation battler in Germany. If there’s an option to make the move permanent in the summer, Morris could very well be a Premier League player in six months’ time after having played a part in securing that status.
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Swansea came close to promotion last season, when they loaned in forward Rhian Brewster from Liverpool and watched in delight as he scored 10 goals in 20 league games during the second half of the season, but were ultimately knocked out of the playoffs by Brentford who went on to lose to Fulham in the promotion playoff final at Wembley Stadium.