There is usually an attempt to put a brave face on it. A player has left, yes, but the selling club talks of the exciting signings they have made or planned, the new era that is underway or the money made.
Not this time. “It is definitely not something we wanted to happen,” Swansea City chairman Huw Jenkins said in August. “Ashley expressed his desire for a new challenge. We reluctantly agreed to his request.”
Swansea were rejected by the player who had appeared Mr Swansea, Ashley Williams. He submitted a transfer request and got transferred.
Jenkins could have cited the £12 million (Dh54.7m) fee Swansea received for a footballer who cost them just £400,000, the huge profit yielded after an eight-year stay that encompassed two promotions and one major trophy or that Everton were paying a large amount for a 32-year-old with limited resale value. But there was no sugar-coating the blow.
Three months later, there is no disguising its impact. Swansea may have had their hand forced but, as they prepare for a reunion with their former captain at Goodison Park on Saturday, Williams rivals N’Golo Kante as the worst sale of the season: not in terms of the price recouped or the difficulty of keeping hold of an unsettled player, but simply because of how much he is missed.
Swansea are conceding almost two goals a game – 21 in 11 matches – whereas Everton, until the aberration of a 5-0 thrashing at Chelsea, had the division’s second-best defensive record. Swansea signed two central defenders, in Mike van der Hoorn and Alfie Mawson, but they didn’t replace Williams. The rookies are raw. The newcomers have been paired and exposed. Swansea’s tactics were naive in the twin 3-1 defeats to Stoke and Manchester United, but a side with a soft underbelly will always be fallible.
The sole centre-back with proven quality in Bob Bradley’s squad is Federico Fernandez, and he has been injured.
It means Everton could start with defenders aged 32 and 34 at the heart of their defence, in Williams and Phil Jagielka, Swansea with one at the age of 22 the other at 24.
Ronald Koeman looks the pragmatist but Swansea, second from bottom, are in most need of pragmatism.
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It is telling Williams opted for Everton. Telling because he had stayed at Swansea when more glamorous clubs coveted him in the past. Arsenal showed an interest. Liverpool, who he supported as a boy, wanted him in 2013 when former Swans manager Brendan Rodgers was at Anfield.
“He’s a massive player for Swansea,” the current Celtic manager said in January. “He’s immaculate on the ball and he’s one of the few breeds in that he’s a leader.”
His Liverpool came desperately close to winning the title in 2013/14, when ultimately they conceded too many goals. It is one of football’s ‘what ifs’ if Liverpool would have become champions had they lured Williams to Merseyside.
Instead he left Swansea three years later to join a club that had finished 11th. His exit was both symptom and cause of their loss of identity.
Swansea were distinct, part owned by supporters, showing purist principles even amid the attrition of the lower leagues, retaining the loyalty of a core of stalwarts.
One theory is that their inability to re-sign another of Wales’ Euro 2016 stars, Joe Allen, who instead joined Stoke City, contributed to Williams’ change of heart.
He cited the chance to play for Koeman, “one of the best ever to play my position”, when he discussed the move last month.
But perhaps he simply sensed Swansea were a club in danger of decline, a decline he both noticed and, by leaving, hastened.
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