Swansea City announce loan move for highly-rated Newcastle United youngster Harrison Ashby

Swansea City have completed the loan signing of Newcastle United’s Harrison Ashby.

The full-back will spend the 2023-24 season with Michael Duff’s side in south Wales.

He becomes the new head coach’s sixth signing of the summer, following in the footsteps of Josh Key, Josh Ginnelly, Jerry Yates, Carl Rushworth and Mykola Kukharevich.

Ashby, who only joined the St James’ outfit in January from West Ham in a £3million move, impressed on the Toon’s pre-season tour of the US. Supporters on Tyneside were keen to see the youngster get a chance this season but it has been decided the best course of action is to send him out on loan in order to get game-time under his belt.

Ashby will come straight into contention for Swansea’s Championship curtain-raiser against Birmingham City at the Swansea.com Stadium on Saturday.

Commenting on the move, Ashby said: “It’s a massive opportunity for me, so to finally be here after a good trip in the US is great.

“I’m feeling fit and ready and I’m ready to go at it. The facilities are top here so it can’t get much better.

“The conversation with Michael Duff convinced me this was the right place for me. It’s everything that I want in terms of style of play, it suits me.

“I’m a right-back or full-back. I can play left-back, which I know some people will be happy to hear!

“I’m feel I’m very attacking. Scoring goals is what everyone wants to do in football and since a young age, I’ve always wanted to score goals. I started off as a number 10, so scoring goals and assisting is something that I want to do.

“I want to bring that to my game here.

“The Championship is one of the biggest leagues in the world so this is a massive step in my career. If I can bring some glory to Swansea at the same time, then that’s a perfect match.”

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The Championship is back and Swansea City kick their campaign off against Birmingham City at the Swansea.com Stadium. Ahead of the action, WhoScored.com preview the opening weekend clash, taking a look at what to expect from the Blues, the key battle and a key stat

In the 2022-23 campaign the Blues managed to steer clear of the drop zone and ended the season in 17th position with a total of 53 points, in what was their highest Championship finish since the 2015-16 season when Gary Rowett was in charge.

There has been a fair bit of transfer activity at Birmingham during the summer window already, with them securing the signatures of Krystian Bielik from Derby – who spent last season on loan at St Andrew’s – Tyler Roberts from Leeds and Ethan Laird from Manchester United.

They have also had two significant departures, with Tahith Chong moving to Premier League new boys Luton Town in a deal worth around £4m. The Blues have also lost the services of Jobe Bellingham, who made the move to Sunderland for a fee of £1.5m

Birmingham have also, of course, announced in the last few days that seven-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady has become a minority owner, which will spark excitement amongst Blues fans.

According to the WhoScored.com strengths and weaknesses of the visitors, you can expect Birmingham to look to dominate in the air and use that aerial prowess to create scoring chances in abundance.

The WhoScored.com calculated strengths and weaknesses for these two sides suggest Birmingham will dominate proceedings in the air. Swansea were the lowest-ranked side in the league for aerial wins per game (10.2) last season compared to Birmingham’s 25.2, the second-highest tally in the league.

Swansea know this all too well from the last time they faced Birmingham, where the Blues (20) managed to win 16 more aerial duels than the Swans’ four. Swansea found themselves on the wrong end of a 4-3 defeat that day thanks to two late goals back in February.

 

But the Swans are under new stewardship with Michael Duff at the helm, and he has been clear in his desire to make his new side a more robust proposition, meaning the Blues will be intriguing opening opponents.

The hosts can also continue to call on the goalscoring talents of Joel Piroe, who netted 20 goals in all competitions for the second season running last term.

The Dutchman has looked sharp once more during pre-season, scoring a brace in their final friendly at Reading, and his 19 league goals last season meant Piroe finished fourth in the Championship top scorer table behind Chuba Akpom (28), Viktor Gyokeres (21) and Carlton Morris (20).

Last season Swansea boasted the highest average possession in the Championship with 64.6%, whilst Birmingham enjoyed just 41% of the ball in 2022-23. Despite the change of head coach over the summer, expect Swansea to still have a greater share of the ball.

Both sides also had contrasting pass success rates in the previous campaign with only Rotherham recording a lower pass accuracy (65.2%) than the Blues (67.4%). On the other hand, The Swans topped the charts with an 87.2% accuracy rate.

Interestingly, both sides here adopt an aggressive style of play so you can expect this to be a feisty affair. Swansea received the most cards in the league last season with 109 bookings and three red cards. Birmingham weren’t too far behind though, ranked in sixth with 95 bookings.