Vigouroux determined to seize Swansea chance

Lawrence Vigouroux is Swansea's only fit senior goalkeeper heading into the new season

Lawrence Vigouroux accepts that his lack of professionalism slowed progress in the early stages of his football career.

Now older, wiser and confident he can thrive in the Championship, the 30-year-old is determined to seize his chance at Swansea City.

“I hold my hands up, I was not the most professional guy when I was younger,” Vigouroux told BBC Sport Wales.

“That’s something I feel has hampered me in terms of being able to play at this level and [helps explain why] it’s taken me such a long time to get here.”

Vigouroux insists he has “always felt ready” to play in the upper echelons of the English game.

“But there are other things in football that matter – what you are like as a guy day to day, how you act, how punctual you are,” he added.

“When I was younger, I took those things for granted and I had that reputation of being a good keeper but… there was always a but. That was a big problem for me.”

Vigouroux is not a man attempting to sweep past mistakes under the carpet.

The goalkeeper’s belief is that lessons learned from his younger days will help the cause as he attempts to establish himself as Swansea’s number one.

“We have some really good keepers here and I am going to have to try to fight to win the shirt,” Vigouroux said.

“Then I just want to express myself on the pitch. I am happy to be at a place where I feel I am able to do that.”

Lawrence Vigouroux kept a clean sheet on his debut at the Swansea.com Stadium, as Luke Williams' team beat Rio Ave last weekend

Vigouroux will start when Swansea kick off the new Championship campaign at Middlesbrough this Saturday.

Aside from a brief spell playing in Chile, it will be his first senior appearance at any level above League One.

The path to Wales began in Brentford’s youth set-up, before a three-year spell as a youngster at Tottenham Hotspur during the reigns of Andre Villas-Boas and Tim Sherwood.

In 2014 he landed a move to Liverpool, then managed by former Swansea boss Brendan Rodgers, and played regularly for the Reds’ under-21s before joining Swindon Town, initially on loan, in 2015.

Vigouroux got his first-team chance at the County Ground, playing 130 games, many of them under the guidance of Luke Williams, who is his boss once more at Swansea.

Yet he found himself at “rock bottom” as he struggled to find a club having been released by the Robins.

“I wanted to stay in England but I had no offers because of how people perceived me,” Vigouroux said.

“It was true, so I have to hold my hands up. I said to myself that if I ever had an opportunity in England again, I would take it with both hands and I won’t be that person again.”

Vigouroux had been called up by Chile, the land of his father, during his time at Swindon.

With no club to join on these shores, he signed for Chilean club Everton de Vina del Mar.

It proved an ill-fated move, with prolonged anti-government protests eventually leading to the cancellation of Chile’s football season.

“People were rioting every day,” Vigouroux said.

“I had come from England, was living 15 hours from home and people were rioting about something I didn’t have a clue about. It was quite scary.”

As a result, Camden-born Vigouroux returned home after only six months despite not having a club to go to.

Yet he had not long landed when a call came from Leyton Orient, who were managed by Ross Embleton, Williams’ former assistant at Swindon, and had just lost their keeper to a serious injury.

This was a pivotal moment in Vigouroux’s career. He felt he was “in a good place” at Orient, where he racked up more than 150 games and celebrated promotion from League Two in 2022-23.

Vigouroux’s contribution was so significant that he landed a move to Burnley, who had just been promoted to the Premier League under Vincent Kompany, last summer.

With £19m signing James Trafford and Arijanet Muric ahead of him in the pecking order, Vigouroux did not play a game for the Clarets as they were relegated from the top flight last season.

But he says life under Kompany was ideal preparation for a move to Swansea.

Vigouroux is a keeper who relishes the opportunity to play with his feet, hence his reunion with Williams.

Lawrence Vigouroux was named in the 2022-23 League Two team of the season after helping Leyton Orient win the title

“Throughout my career he (Williams) has been a big influence in how I see the game,” Vigouroux said.

“He gives me the freedom to express myself. The kind of goalkeeper I am, that’s really important to me.”

Vigouroux had been a Swansea player less than 24 hours when an injury to Andy Fisher saw him make his debut in the pre-season friendly defeat to FC Koln last month.

Within minutes of entering the fray, he had caused a stir on social media thanks to what could become a trademark move.

Vigouroux, with the ball in his hands, wanted to check there was no opposition player behind him before dropping it to the ground.

Rather than glancing over each shoulder, as many keepers do, he performed a 360 degree spin.

“I am happy to be able to explain it so people can get off my back a bit,” Vigouroux said with a smile.

“I always check behind me to see if there is a striker there - I've always done it. If I just look over both shoulders, I feel like I don’t get the full picture - they could be standing right behind me.

“I have seen some videos from back in the day where the keeper puts the ball down and someone scores. That gives me a bit of anxiety, so I always do the little spin quickly, then play.”

Swansea fans will have to get used to the Vigouroux spin.

If all goes to plan, after all, they will be seeing it every week.