Matt Grimes interview: Swansea captain on the upbringing that made him Mr Reliable

Matt Grimes is briefly taken aback when he is reminded the 10-year anniversary of his move to Swansea is now just days away, on January 2.

“To be honest, I don’t really know how I feel,” he tells Sky Sports. “I feel like I’ve blinked and it’s just gone – so fast.”

Technically, the midfielder is not a one-club man; he started out at hometown club Exeter and spent time on loan at Blackburn, Leeds and Northampton after a slow start to his time in south Wales. But since then, he has become part of the furniture – it is clear there is only one club for him.

Since joining the Swans at the age of 19, he has made 324 appearances in all competitions for the club. Across the previous six seasons before 2024/25, he had missed only four league games. Forty-one more games and he will be in the top 10 appearance-makers of all time.

“I feel like the Championship is so busy and there’s always so much going on, that you just take it game by game and each season rolls into another season, into another season and I find myself 10 years deep.

“I just start off each season thinking I want to play every game. I feel like that’s how you are as a kid. You just want to play and play and play and I’ve not lost that.

“Especially in the last couple of seasons, I’ve just been determined to play every minute of every game. It’s something that I’ve become quite proud of.”

Many call Grimes a legend – unusual for a player that only turned 29 in July – but he is not convinced he is near being worthy of that status just yet.

“We’ve got a Hall of Fame wall at the stadium, with club legends like Wayne Routledge, Nathan Dyer, Alan Curtis, Garry Monk, Ashley Williams – all the big hitters are on there,” he says.

“When I see the appearances and it’s 350, 360, 400, I’m thinking, ‘Yeah, I’m not far off that now!’ But the big thing for me is the honours those guys achieved here. They’ve taken the club from League Two to the Premier League and that’s what gives them legend status. That’s what people remember them for.

“I feel like, at the moment, I’m just a player that’s played a lot of games for one club. My goal is not so much to play as many games as them, it’s to achieve what they have and leave the club in a better place than when I first broke through here.”

He is certainly on the way. A glance at his stats illustrates exemplary passing ability. A glance at the sheer volume of appearances he has made over the last eight seasons illustrates reliability many managers can only dream of.

Including his season on loan at Northampton in 2017/18, Grimes has played in 342 league games – the most of any player in the top four divisions of English football.

The numbers are astonishing – and his upbringing has been pivotal to that, he says.

“It’s kind of become a thing just through the way I was raised; my mum and dad always wanted the best for me. You can’t go out on a Saturday if you’ve just played or you’ve got a game on Tuesday.

“Anything that was going to hamper performance was discouraged and I’ve taken that into my life and how I live now. I’ll not do anything that puts me in a bad spot or means I can’t train or anything like that.

“If I play on the Saturday and got another game on the Tuesday, I’m just thinking, right, played the Saturday, now I’ve got to do the Tuesday and then I’ve got to do the next Saturday – and it has just rolled into hundreds of games.

“It’s just living right; eat well, sleep well, rest as much as you can. The majority of footballers know what’s good for your body and what’s bad for your body, so do as many good things as you can and do as few bad things as you can.

“There are exceptions from time to time and everyone likes to let their hair down once in a while and that’s completely normal. But if you’re 90 to 95 per cent perfect – not perfect, but living correctly – then you won’t go far wrong.”

Grimes has worked under nine permanent managers in his decade at Swansea, and four have made a notable impact on him. “There’s not really many things now that throw me in any way, to be honest,” he adds.

“Graham Potter was unbelievable. He gave me my opportunity, allowed me to break through and he’s gone on to do fantastic things. Steve Cooper made me captain, which was an honour and I learned so much from him. He moved on to do unbelievably well with Forest. Again, a top manager.

“Russell Martin was fantastic with me. He really brought out a side of my game that I’d been working on throughout the years, but he brought that out of me and enabled me to control the game how Swansea players want to. He gave me a great understanding of a different dimension of football; very heavily possession-based.

“Now we’ve got a manager [Luke Williams] that, for me, is among those names. I think he’s absolutely phenomenal. He will 100 per cent manage in the Premier League at some point. Ask anyone that has worked with him; his detail and his obsession to win is second to none, so we’re in a good place with him at the helm.”

In spite of the calibre of the managers that have passed through the doors of the Swansea.com Stadium in recent years, Swansea are still in the Championship, exactly where they were when Grimes arrived. This is their seventh straight season in the second tier.

They reached the play-off semi-finals in 2019/20 and the final in 2020/21, but were beaten by Brentford on both occasions and have not finished above 10th since.

“Since those play-off campaigns, it’s been seasons of transition, to be honest,” Grimes concedes.

“Our chairman [Andy Coleman] is absolutely unbelievable. He is obsessed, like the manager is, with taking this club back up to the Premier League and I think this is the most settled and the best place we’ve been in for quite a while.”

Swansea sit 10th ahead of their trip to Hull on Saturday – live on Sky Sports+ at 12.30pm – with a seven-point gap separating them from the play-off places at present.

Saturday 21st December 12:25pm


Kick off 12:30pm

Talk of where they might end up is off the cards as the halfway point arrives, but Grimes knows he wants to add to his four Premier League games, whenever that might be.

“Like I’ve said before in interviews, I just owe everything to Swansea and for what the club has given me in my career.

“To take the club back to the Premier League would be a dream come true and that’s what we’re all fighting for.”