LEON Britton believes Swansea City will fire a major statement of intent with their record signing of Wilfried Bony.
Ivory Coast striker Bony is poised to complete a £12 million move from Vitesse Arnhem — rising to a potential £13.75 million — when he joins the Swans on their pre-season tour of Holland to undergo a medical today.
Personal terms have been agreed with the 24-year-old, who scored 31 Eredivisie goals in 30 games last season and will overtake Pablo Hernandez as Swansea's record signing.
The Swans and Vitesse now only need to finalise some paperwork formalities, and Britton believes Bony's arrival would symbolise Swansea's growing stature.
"It's a statement of intent to spend £10 million on one player and I'm sure it won't be the only big signing," he said.
"I think it's important to keep trying to improve and keep adding to the squad.
"The better the players we get, the higher we will finish up the table.
"The club needs to progress. It's hard to keep bettering the year before but we finished ninth and won the League Cup.
"It's hard to get ahead of the teams that are always going to be one to seven — you could pick them every year.
"If you have a good year, you can finish ninth like we did or you could have a bad year and find yourselves in the bottom three."
Less than a year ago, the most Swansea had paid for one player was the £3.5 million they parted with in order to sign Danny Graham from Watford. Twice they surpassed that mark last summer, with Ki Sung-Yueng arriving from Celtic for £5.5 million and then Pablo Hernandez joining from Valencia for £5.55 million.
So far this summer, the Swans have already splashed out more than £8 million on Jonjo Shelvey, Jordi Amat, Jose Canas and Alejandro Pozuelo.
"£10 million, I don't think we can quite believe it," added Britton, who signed for Swansea when they were a fourth-tier side a decade ago.
"We paid £5.55 million last season, but I think we all knew that would be broken this season.
"For Swansea that's a lot of money.
"It shows how far the club has come because you wouldn't have dreamed of us spending that on four players even a few years ago.
"To spend it on one just shows the league we're in and the money involved.
"The Premier League is such a global brand, it's so important that we stay there.
"We need quality like Bony, who's scored a lot of goals.
"His record speaks for itself: 31 goals in 30 games.
"It is Holland, but it's still a top flight division so to do that says a lot."
