By BBC (Sports) | Created at 2025-01-22 14:54:44 | Updated at 2025-01-31 08:48:51
1 week ago
Luke Williams says Swansea City must improve the Swansea.com Stadium's "brutal pitch" because it is making it harder for his team to thrive in the Championship.
The playing surface cut up badly during Swansea's 2-1 home defeat by Sheffield United on Tuesday.
It is not the first time this season the turf has shown signs of wear and tear, and Williams believes the time has come for the club to take action.
"We need to sort that out - we can't go on with that," the Swansea head coach said.
"It was like walking across an allotment at the end of the game.
"That's got nothing to do with the ground staff, by the way. It's just the volume of traffic that the pitch has had on it with football and rugby. The climate has also been challenging."
Swansea share their ground with rugby side Ospreys, as they have done since the Swansea.com Stadium - previously known as the Liberty Stadium - opened in 2005.
The surface has won various awards for its quality, most recently in 2019, the same year in which the Swans spent more than £500,000 on renewing the pitch at base level for the first time since the stadium was built.
Yet the surface had to be relaid midway through the 2020-21 season with the club indicating it had been hit by disease the previous autumn.
They also pointed to changes to scheduling caused by coronavirus as well as exceptionally wet weather as factors which contributed to their pitch problems.
Williams believes the current issues may be partly down to the fact that the surface is simply "getting older".
"The artificial stuff that is woven into the pitch has a lifespan," he said.
"Once you kick that stuff out, no matter how much sunshine or ultraviolet light or watering you give it, artificial grass doesn't grow back."
Williams says the problems do not help a Swansea side who are renowned for playing a possession game, which requires a quality surface.
"It makes it tougher, the way we want to play, in particular," he added.
Ospreys are to end their stay at the Swansea.com Stadium, which is owned by the Swans, before the 2025-26 season, with the region in the process of making St Helen's their new home.
There is a particularly busy week on the horizon for the stadium in the spring, with Swansea playing home games against Derby County on Saturday, 5 April and Plymouth Argyle four days later, while Ospreys host Scarlets in the European Challenge Cup on Sunday, 6 April (17:30 GMT).
