It wasn't supposed to be like this.

When news broke that majority shareholders Jason Levien and Steve Kaplan would be selling their majority stake in Swansea City, the overarching narrative was that real and tangible change was coming.

The feeling was largely one of euphoria among many sections of the Swansea fanbase, who duly celebrated what Andy Coleman himself declared as a new era for the football club.

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Just over two months on, and it all largely feels the same at SA1. Sign up to our Swansea City newsletter here.

Even by their own standards, this January window was, however you look at it, a total disaster.

For all the bluster and the PR charm offensives, this month always felt like it would be the first real test for the new regime. Sadly, whatever metric you use, it's a test they've failed miserably. One can only wonder what majority owners Brett Cravatt and Jason Cohen make of it all.

Coleman, the constant that's been running through the changing of hands in ownership, has always maintained that the sign of a good transfer window is one that leaves a squad stronger than when it first went in. No one could realistically argue with a straight face that this squad is better than the one that started the month.

With the Swans sinking like a stone down the Championship table, with just one point taken in 2025, it should be a huge concern for everyone.

Swansea fans will get their own chance to voice their concerns to Coleman and co soon, with a fan forum understood to be in the pipeline for later this month.

But for now, the task is about picking up the pieces and examining what can now be salvaged from a season that, in the space of just a few weeks, looks to have completely fallen apart.

It's a total contrast to the start of the month, where the club was seemingly brimming with optimism, and had identified three key areas in which to strengthen: a centre-back, an attacking midfielder, and a winger.

That was before any departures transpired, although admittedly the exits of goalkeeping duo Andy Fisher and Nathan Broome on loan were unlikely to have changed much in terms of Swansea's strategy for the window (assuming, of course, there was one).

Similarly, few were realistically surprised to see Nelson Abbey head back to parent club Olympiakos. The centre-back would eventually join Portuguese side Rio Ave having made just one appearance for the Swans in the Carabao Cup.

But his exit, combined with an injury to Harry Darling ahead of what was a disastrous South Wales Derby, clearly underlined the need to get more central defensive options on board. The club had been working on a potential move for Wycombe Wanderers star Joe Low even before the window opened, but circumstances meant he soon shot up to the top of the shopping list.

Despite weeks of negotiations, the club couldn't strike a deal with the Chairboys, who appear confident of pocketing a hefty fee for the 22-year-old in the summer, which in turn relieved any pressure on them to sell this month.

The Swans looked abroad for options, with targets in the Dutch market identified. Luke Williams was even ready to go out and watch a couple of them, but that trip was cancelled when it became apparent that the player they planned to watch wasn't actually going to play.

Free agent Timothy Fosu-Mensah was offered to the club, and there's a chance a deal could still be done, but it soon became clear he wasn't a priority.

Links with Lamare Bogarde and Osaze Urhoghide came and went as the centre-back hunt went on, before the club eventually opted for Hannes Delcroix, who joined on loan from Burnley.

It seemed as though the club were potentially making progress on the hunt for a midfielder too, with Luke Cundle and Adam Phillips among the players looked at. Neither would end up coming.

Then came the bombshell that no one at the club claims to have seen coming.

The departure of Matt Grimes to Coventry City, and the player's own determination to force the move through, sparked a cocktail of surprise and anger among those at Fairwood, and despite assurances from Williams that there was a contingency, it quickly became apparent that his exit wasn't something the club had planned for.

With the club seemingly no closer to their initial targets, they were now forced to also draw up a plan to try and replace their skipper with one, ideally two, Premier League loans.

Melker Widell's arrival might well have taken some of the burden away, but when it emerged that loaning him back to Aalborg was the only way to land him in this window, attention soon moved on - and indeed intensified.

Targets in League One were identified too, with the club launching a bid for Hector Kyprianou at Peterborough United, which again, didn't seem to go anywhere.

Leyton Orient's Ethan Galbraith was another on the radar, and would even be the subject of a failed and seemingly desperate £750,000 bid on deadline day, despite previously being earmarked as a potential deal for the summer.

One can't help but wonder why he wasn't tied into the deal to take Azeem Abdulai to East London earlier in the window, a move that once again depleted the midfield options available. A pertinent example of the total lack of joined up thinking that appears to be running through Swansea's recruitment department right now.

The sight of Abdulai netting a hat-trick and an assist in his second Orient appearance days before deadline day provided another couple of stitches in the tapestry of frustration that was by now slowly starting to come together for the Swans, while a failed loan bid for young Southampton winger Sam Amo-Ameyaw probably added another couple of notches still. Joel Mvuka was another winger Swansea looked at, but they couldn't meet Lorient's valuation.

And yet, the mood at the start of deadline day was somehow pretty positive, with midfield trio Lewis O'Brien, Jacob Wright and Bobby Clark all emerging as genuine possibilities.

Had they landed all three, this window would have probably been seen as a pretty reasonable one, and there was real optimism it could be done.

But, in hindsight, the cracks were there before deadline day had even fully got going.

For one, Manchester City youngster Wright had already been to Swansea's training ground on the Sunday, but still hadn't made the decision to sign come the Monday morning. Looking back, that should have perhaps been seen as more of a red flag than it was.

As deadline day progressed, it soon became evident the 19-year-old was, at best, lukewarm about the possibility of signing for the Swans, who had already reached an agreement with Man City to take him on loan with an obligation to buy at the end of the season.

Wright would, of course, eventually sign for Norwich City.

Clark, another loan target Swansea would miss out on, never quite got to that stage.

Swansea had initially agreed a deal with Red Bull Salzburg to take the former Liverpool man on loan, but negotiations didn't appear to get much further. Some sources have suggested the Austrian side changed their mind late in the day, instead demanding a permanent fee for the 19-year-old that Swansea simply couldn't meet.

Whatever the reasons, it would be another deal that would slip through the club's fingers.

At one stage, there were doubts around O'Brien's move too. Indeed, deadline day started with suggestions that the midfielder had changed his mind due his wife being due to give birth before the end of the season.

However, those reports were soon quashed, and after offering a financial package that took them beyond the chasing pack, which is understood to have included European giants Valencia and Besiktas, as well as a string of clubs in the Championship and MLS, a move never really looked in doubt.

His capture looks a shrewd acquisition, but any feelgood factor around his signing would quickly be overshadowed by the club's increasingly desperate attempts to get more recruits on board, particularly when the deals for Clark and Wright fell through.

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As well as Galbraith, the club also launched a last ditch loan bid for young Tottenham winger Damola Ajayi, but it quickly became apparent that nothing would come of it, and by around 10pm Swansea had largely burned their way to the very bottom of their shortlist.

Perhaps the only crumb of comfort from this window is Swansea didn't dare to venture from the disappointing into the outright stupid, which can be so often the case for them at this time of year.

Selling Harry Darling, who still doesn't appear to be any closer to a contract extension beyond the end of this season, would have probably tipped the scales in that direction. Keeping him, from a footballing perspective at least, has to be seen as a positive.

But on the whole, there will be serious questions around the club's strategy for this window, and why so much of their business was left quite so late in the day. There will also be questions around what, if anything, is really different about this regime compared to the previous one. Both are questions Coleman will have to adequately answer if he's to succeed in his brief of reconnecting with the fans.

There are perhaps some mitigating factors here. The most obvious being that Swansea probably aren't the most attractive proposition for good players right now. It's a harsh but largely accurate assessment of the reality at the moment.

After all, much of the talk around the Swans is now focused more on trying to avoid relegation to League One rather than any ambitions to sneak into the top six.

Judging by the way negotiations in certain deals have panned out, it's clear the purse stings are still tight too, which has probably further harmed the club's pulling power, particularly in comparison to some of their rivals.

Not for the first time, those decisions have left Swansea's first team manager now facing the prospect of having to work with what he's got. One can only hope he has enough.