Jerry Yates’ late strike cancelled out fellow debutant Siriki Dembele’s first-half effort as Swansea drew 1-1 with Birmingham in their Sky Bet Championship opener.

Fresh from his £2million transfer from Bournemouth, Dembele excited throughout – even earning praise on social media from new Blues co-owner Tom Brady, the great NFL quarterback – and netted in the 45th minute after sloppy play from the hosts at the Swansea.com Stadium.

But Liam Cullen squared to former Blackpool forward Yates, who coolly slotted home from close range in the 75th minute to earn Michael Duff’s troops a point in the head coach’s first match as boss.

Both sides showed some early rustiness as the lively Dembele had the only chance of note in the opening stages, although debutant Carl Rushworth – on loan from Brighton – made a routine save to keep out the Ivorian’s low driven strike.

Swansea grew in confidence though, and they gave Blues a fright on 19 minutes when Harry Darling’s deflected strike fell to Jamie Paterson who was unable to square to Yates for a tap-in.

Rushworth was again on hand to dive low to his left to keep out Krystian Bielik’s fierce effort after the Poland international was teed up by Ethan Laird.

Clear-cut openings remained at a premium, although John Eustace will have breathed a sigh of relief when Kevin Long intervened to deny Joel Piroe a chance after Yates showed real endeavour out wide.

The Swans thought they had broken the deadlock just five minutes before the break when Piroe teed up Paterson to curl beyond John Ruddy, although the offside flag was raised.

And it was the away fans who were celebrating on the stroke of half-time as Keshi Anderson pounced on Rushworth’s sloppy pass to Ben Cabango before squaring to Dembele, who rifled home to put Birmingham ahead at the break. The reaction from Brady, since Thursday the chairman of a new advisory board at Birmingham, was to tweet: “Way to finish!!!”

Swansea failed to trouble Ruddy and were fortunate not to go two behind as Anderson played Ivan Sunjic through on goal following a rapid counter, although his meek effort was easily saved.

Having been blunt in attack, Swansea came within a whisker of equalising in the 66th minute as Darling rose to nod Paterson’s corner goalwards, only for his header to rebound off the crossbar.

Duff responded by sending on Cullen and Azeem Abdulai after Jordan James had replaced Roberts for Blues, and the changes reaped rewards for the home side.

Captain Matt Grimes played Cullen through on the left, and the Welshman picked out Yates to beat Ruddy from the edge of the six-yard box.

Piroe and Nathan Wood both had efforts late on, although Rushworth produced a sublime one-handed save to deny Sunjic four minutes from time to ensure the points were shared.

Swansea have signed striker Jerry Yates from Blackpool for an undisclosed fee, the Sky Bet Championship club have announced.

The 26-year-old has signed a three-year contract with the option of a further 12 months with the Welsh club.

He becomes the Swans’ third addition of the summer transfer window following the signings of Josh Ginnelly and Josh Key.

Yates came through the youth ranks at hometown Doncaster before moving to Rotherham and then joining the Seasiders in 2020 after loan spells with Harrogate Railway, Harrogate Town, Carlisle and Swindon.

He has scored 76 goals in 262 career appearances including 15 last season, but was unable to prevent Blackpool’s relegation to League One.

Meanwhile, fellow forward Kyle Joseph has moved in the opposite direction, joining the Seasiders for an undisclosed fee.

Jamaica international and Swansea City forward, Jamal Lowe, has admitted that missing out on promotion to the English Premier League (EPL) was a major heartbreak, following a tough loss to Brentford on Saturday.

Swansea were in the automatic promotion spots for most of the season but fell away in the closing weeks.  Against Brentford, whose 2-0 secured their promotion to the topflight English football for the first time in the club’s history, it was more of the same. Ivan Toney put away a coolly struck penalty to give them the lead early on before a cool Emiliano Marcondes strike increased the lead.  Swansea perhaps, overawed by the occasion, offered no reply. To add insult to injury Jay Fulton was sent off midway through the second half.

Taking to social media, Lowe acknowledged that the loss had been difficult but insists the team’s resolve was not shaken after failure to return to the topflight.

“Been an emotional few days.  But this feeling can only fuel us for next season!  Thank you for all the support and welcoming in my first year at the club.  Recover, recharge and go again,” Lowe posted to Instagram.

Lowe scored 14 goals for Swansea this season and played in all 49 league games.

Jamaica international and Swansea forward, Jamal Lowe, believes an end to the ability to be completely anonymous on social media platforms could go a long way in helping to combat racism online and hate speech.

The 26-year-old player found himself the target of racist online abuse following the team’s loss to Birmingham City last weekend.  The forward was the third Swansea player since February to suffer the issue.

In response, Swansea announced that the club would boycott any social media-related activities for two weeks.  They were joined in the effort by Scottish club Rangers.  The player hopes the effort will at least bring more attention to the issue or push social media platforms towards a response.

The issue of the right to online anonymity has provoked fierce debate since the early days of the internet.  At current, individuals are not required to provide identification in order to sign up for accounts, Lowe believes that could part of the issue.

“At the moment, no one knows who is abusing any of us,” Lowe told Sky Sports.

“You’ve got an Instagram account, or a Twitter account or whatever when you sign up, put your email address in, put your national insurance number in or your passport number in, your driver’s license number, something that can identify you as a person,” he added.

“Something that can be linked back to who you really are and not just a page you created in five minutes, send some abuse and delete it because that’s a never-ending story.”