Nine in, and the one who has played every minute is the free transfer: Swansea City's window in numbers
The nine, Championship 2026-27 (three games with player rows)
- Welsh (Celtic, free)
- 270 min
- Opoku (Zulte Waregem)
- 204 min
- Yeo (Salzburg)
- 192 min
- Just (Motherwell)
- 157 min
- Eustaquio (Porto)
- 25 min
- Stewart (free)
- 9 min
- Seelt, Parente, Iorpenda
- 0 min
Where this sits
Championship 2026-27 rows, API-Football, players?team=76&season=2026 read at 03:35 on 2 September (the Watford match has no player rows yet, so these cover Stoke, Sheffield United and Derby): Welsh 3 starts, 270 minutes, rating 7.4, 15 duels won; Opoku 204 minutes, 2 goals, rating 7.03; Yeo 192 minutes, 5 key passes, rating 6.87; Just 157 minutes, rating 6.6; Eustaquio 25 minutes, 1 assist, rating 7.2; Stewart 9 minutes; Seelt, Parente and Iorpenda no minutes
Last season, API-Football: Welsh 27 Premiership starts and 2,282 minutes for Motherwell (rating 7.14); Just 35 Premiership games, 2,698 minutes, 7 goals, 7 assists for Motherwell (7.11); Opoku 33 Jupiler Pro League games, 2,382 minutes, 10 goals, 6 assists (6.91); Yeo 22 Austrian Bundesliga games, 957 minutes, 1 goal, 2 assists for Salzburg; Stewart 27 Championship games, 1,105 minutes, 9 goals for Southampton; Eustaquio 8 Primeira Liga games and 184 minutes for Porto, plus 201 in the Europa League; Seelt 9 Bundesliga games and 696 minutes for Wolfsburg before 134 Premier League minutes for Sunderland; Iorpenda 49 League Two games, 3,864 minutes, 3 goals, 8 assists on loan at Notts County; Parente 5 Segunda Liga games for Benfica B
Welsh's 7.4 average rating over three Championship starts is the highest of any Swansea City player with 90 minutes or more this season (Cabango 7.3, Tymon 7.2, Eom 7.2). Same provider as the panel, four games in
Swansea City have conceded one goal in four Championship games, the fewest of the 24 clubs, and are top on 10 points, the only club on 10. Welsh has started every league game of that run
scripts/player-outliers.mjs, top-five ranks only, minute floor 270, every scan complete at 04:15 on 2 September: Iorpenda is the one arrival with a top-five rank, in League Two 2025-26 on loan at Notts County: fouls drawn 93 (2nd of 381 players), tackles 101 (3rd); his 8 assists ranked 7th. No top-five rank for Welsh or Just (Scottish Premiership), Yeo (Austrian Bundesliga) or Eustaquio (Primeira Liga). Stewart, Opoku, Parente and Seelt did not appear above the minute floor in the league pulls the scanner uses. On the 2026-27 Championship only Welsh clears the floor and ranks nowhere in the top five
Nine first-team players arrived at Swansea City this summer by the club's own notices, and four games into the season the one who has played every league minute is the one who arrived without a fee. Stephen Welsh, 26, agreed to join from Celtic on 10 June after 29 appearances on loan at Motherwell, and has started all three Championship games that API-Football has player rows for, 270 minutes at an average rating of 7.4, the highest of any Swansea City player with 90 minutes or more. Swansea City have conceded once in four league games, the fewest of the 24 clubs, and are top on ten points. Welsh has been on the pitch for all of it.
What each one has given so far
Joseph Opoku, 20, signed from Zulte Waregem on a four-year deal after 10 goals and 6 assists in the Belgian league last season, has 204 Championship minutes, two goals and a 7.03 rating. Moussa Yeo, from Red Bull Salzburg, has 192 minutes and five key passes. Elijah Just, from Motherwell after a 7-goal, 7-assist Premiership season, has 157 minutes. Stephen Eustaquio, from Porto on 27 August, needed 25 minutes at Derby for an assist and a 7.2 rating and made a full debut against Watford. Ross Stewart, a free agent after nine Championship goals for Southampton last season, has nine minutes. Tom Iorpenda, 21, from Huddersfield Town after 49 League Two games and 3,864 minutes on loan at Notts County, was an unused substitute against Watford. Jenson Seelt, on loan from Sunderland, played the last four minutes of that game. Tiago Parente, on loan from Benfica, is yet to appear.
What the scan found
Cover ranks every arrival against the league he came from and the league he is in, and prints a rank only when it is top five. One of the nine has one: Tom Iorpenda, in League Two last season on loan at Notts County, drew 93 fouls, the second-most of 381 players in the division, and made 101 tackles, the third-most; his eight assists ranked seventh. Welsh and Just ranked nowhere in the top five of the Scottish Premiership on any measure, Yeo nowhere in Austria's, Eustaquio nowhere in Portugal's, and Stewart, Opoku, Parente and Seelt did not clear the minute floor in the league pulls the scanner reads. On this season's Championship only Welsh has played enough to be ranked, and he ranks nowhere in the top five yet. So the piece leads on minutes and a rating, the two numbers the season has produced, and Iorpenda's card is the one outlier in the window. Last season's totals are the club's or API-Football's, and no fee is printed because Swansea City state none.
The other side of the ledger
The money in was Liam Cullen to Leicester City on 31 July after 207 appearances and 36 goals, Ethan Galbraith to Stoke City for what the club called a significant undisclosed fee, Rico Santos to Sheffield Wednesday, Kyrell Wilson to Gent, Cameron Congreve to Westerlo, and Kit Margetson to Manchester United under a compensation agreement. Ollie Cooper, Leo Walta and Florian Bianchini went out on loan, Walta to Los Angeles FC with an option to buy. Jeremy Monga, reported by the BBC as a loan from Manchester City, had not been announced by the club at the time of writing. Wrexham are at the Swansea.com Stadium on Saturday night.
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