Russell Martin was joined by his entire backroom team as he addressed Swansea City's shambolic January transfer window in a press conference.
The Swans failed to add a single player to their ranks in the opening month of 2023 and missed out on numerous transfer targets - despite letting six players leave the club.
And head coach Martin says those on the ground at Fairwood share his views on the frustrating nature of the winter window. They were in the room as he met the media ahead of the Birmingham match.
READ MORE: Swansea City chiefs conduct shock interview and publicly apologise after shambolic transfer window
"Probably everything I say, they share the feelings that I probably have, that we all have," said the head coach on the presence of his staff at the media briefing. "They wanted to come in today to show how together everyone is despite what’s gone on. It’s important for me and for us."
On the transfer market specifically, Martin stated that the club cannot have a repeat of the recent window in the future, with "ambiguity" in the final stages of deals being a major concern.
It comes after co-owner Jason Levien stated he has the final say on deals. You can read more on that here.
"I probably feel the same way as most of the supporters, the players, the staff, I think we’re all disappointed we couldn't add," he explained.
"We’d chat for so many hours, me, Josh (Marsh), Julian (Winter), the recruitment team about what we need. The problem then arises that we don’t have the final say here. Jason (Levien) alluded to it yesterday, that’s with him.
"All of the hours that get put into the work, then we have a bit of ambiguity at the end of it. It’s a huge body of work that takes a lot of energy and time away.
"We felt we had that in a good place before January. I feel the owners felt that. Because of what we have financially, it’s not a huge pool of players we can go to, you have to be quite specific and detailed with the work we do.
"When I see all of the work that goes into that, and we’re part of that work, the amount of players we met, spoken to and explained to them what we do, the amount of players who agree they’d like to come here, by the time that’s all done, the process gets handed over. There’s a lack of clarity there and a bit of ambiguity.
"If we continue down that process, it’s not good for the club. The football club in the time I've been here and the time before that probably makes too many deadline deals because of that, and I'm not convinced a huge amount of them will have turned out to be hugely positive. It’s not the way we’d prefer to work.
"We had the chance to get some things done early in the window, for one reason or another we didn’t. There’s not one person I look at in this building and think ‘we could have done more’. I don’t think we could have. I see the hurt that Josh had and the anger Julian felt walking in on Wednesday morning.
“By the time we deliver something we think is good for the club, so much hard work has gone into it and then we can be held accountable for it.
“Josh and Julian I don’t think can be held accountable for anything that happened, I don’t think anyone can here on the ground.
“That’s not me blaming anyone, that’s me being really honest with you and being really disappointed and frustrated.
“I don’t think we have any other choice but to be honest.”
You can re-live the press conference in full here.
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