Spanish striker Fernando Llorente signed for Swansea City from La Liga side Sevilla on a two-year contract. After the exits of Gomis, Eder and Paloschi, The Swans were in desperate need of signing a striker and Guidolin has responded with a big name signing. Llorente comes to the Liberty with fantastic pedigree and a remarkable CV, one that contains the titles of World Cup and Euro Cup in it.
Llorente made a name for him while playing at Athletic Bilbao. The 6 ft 5 in striker spent nine years at the Basque club and was one of their most celebrated players scoring a total of 118 goals from 333 appearances. The striker was instrumental in Bilbao’s surge in the Europa League and the Copa Del Rey of 2011/12 season where they reached the finals but unfortunately, couldn’t get his hands on the trophy. The player never won a major trophy with Bilbao despite reaching two more finals before (Copa Del Rey 2008/09 and Supercoppa Espana 2009) 4 in total but changed his luck when he made a move to Italy signing for Juventus.
Llorente struck 16 times in the Serie A and helped Juventus won the Scudetto in 2013/14. Two more league titles followed in the remaining two years along with the Coppa Italia of 2014/15 and two Supercoppa Italiana titles in 2013 and 2015 respectively. The Spanish striker also reached the Champions League final with the Turin side in 2014/15. After featuring heavily in the previous two campaigns, the 31-year-old made only a single league appearance in Serie A before his contract ran out on the first day of the summer transfer window and was signed by Sevilla as a free agent.
The Spanish club gave him a three-year contract and set a release clause of €20m in his contract. The striker played an important part for his team as Sevilla won their third consecutive Europa League last season along with reaching yet another final of the Copa del Rey where he again ended up as a runner-up.
Llorente has been a player capable of much more than he has done over the past couple of years and teaming up with a manager in Guidolin who has previously brought the best out of players above 30 can prove to be very crucial again. Swansea didn’t announce any fee which they paid to get the striker to the Premier League but it can be easily guessed that they have paid some serious amount for Llorente.
The 31-year-old has already spoken of his delight on making the move and has expressed his intention of replicating the kind of form his previous countryman Michu did at the Liberty. The presence of Llorente do give Swansea a lot of weight up front and the striker would be hoping to make a strong impact in his first year which will help him redeem the disappointments of not being able to do enough in terms of goals in his last two campaigns.
