Fernando Llorente wants to become Swansea City royalty at the Liberty Stadium and emulate fellow Spaniard Michu.

Llorente – nicknamed The Lion King at former club Athletic Bilbao – intends to match the impact of his countryman, who was an instant success in Wales before injuries disrupted his career.

After signing a two-year deal on Friday, for a fee to Sevilla understood to be around £5m, 31-year-old Llorente is poised to make his debut in the club’s final pre-season friendly at home to Stade Rennais.

His arrival is expected to clear the path for striker Andrew Ayew to conclude his move to West Ham.

“I am very happy to join Swansea,” said Llorente, who will wear squad number nine.

“I have scored goals in La Liga and Serie A, and now I want to score a lot of goals for the club in the Premier League.

“I want to score a lot of goals like Michu. He is a very good player and he did very well here.”
Michu struck 22 goals in 43 games during his debut season at Swansea, which included scoring the second goal in the Capital One Cup final win over Bradford City at Wembley.

Llorente will do well to match those achievements, but he does arrive with a far greater pedigree than Michu, who was a relative unknown when he left Spain.

A World Cup and European Championship winner with Spain, Llorente followed up his early success with Bilbao, known as the lions, by helping Juventus become the dominant force in Italy in recent times alongside Manchester United target Paul Pogba.

He lifted two Serie A titles with Juventus, along with the Coppa Italia, while he reached the Champions League final in 2015.

Llorente, who speaks fluent Italian from his time at Juventus, is also looking forward to working under manager Francesco Guidolin.

The striker scored on both occasions when Juventus faced Guidolin’s Udinese during the 2013-14 campaign.

And he’s excited to be linking up with the Swans boss for the new campaign.

“He is a very good trainer and I am very happy to be working with him,” he added.

“I know him from my time playing in Italy. He is very experienced and has done really well at the clubs he has managed.

“I’m looking forward to playing for him.”