Looking ahead to the upcoming play-off final, John Swift has said Reading are confident of beating Huddersfield in the ‘richest game in football’ to gain a place in the Premier League, which could see him face former club Chelsea next season.
Swift, an FA Youth Cup winner at Chelsea in 2012, knows he could have stayed with the Premier League champions, who wanted to keep him, but he didn’t want to stay at Stamford Bridge simply to be loaned out again.
He told the Daily Mirror: ‘I could have stayed at Chelsea but I had three loan spells while I was there and I wanted to be involved week in, week out. I could have stayed at Chelsea but I didn`t want to go out on loan again.’
As well as the aforementioned Youth Cup win, Swift was a member of the England squad that triumphed at the Toulon Tournament last summer. He went into that tournament in the South of France aiming to do well following a successful loan at Brentford in the hope it could earn him a move elsewhere as the midfielder had decided he wasn’t staying at Chelsea.
Swift said: ‘I wanted to sign for a team and do well for myself. Toulon was good for me. I wasn`t signing for Chelsea so I wanted to go out there and do well. I had a good season at Brentford on loan and I was hoping I could find another club.’
It didn’t take much consideration when Swift, 21, heard of interest from Jaap Stam in bringing him to the Madejski Stadium and he hasn’t looked back.
Adding: ‘As soon as I heard Jaap Stam was interested in taking me to Reading, that had been interested straight away. You look at his background and he was such a great player. At Ajax, they play good football, football that I want to play. I wanted to go to a team that suited the way I like to play. I met Jaap before I signed and I made my decision straight away. It was easy.’
Looking ahead to Monday’s play-off final Swift said ‘we are confident going there’ as he prepares to play for Reading at Wembley, which could have been his destination on Saturday for Chelsea’s FA Cup final against Arsenal, most likely as a squad member of the Blues looking on from the stands though.
Swift’s previously been forced to watch on from the stands, Swindon had too many loanees in 2015 so he ‘had to sit in the stand and watch’ as the Robins were beaten 4-0 by Preston in the League One play-off final, clearly a repeat he’ll not want, both in terms of being forced to watch on and his side being defeated.
