Swansea City’s star man has been linked with Everton and West Ham – but he dreams bigger than 7th or 12th place.
The sheer numbers alone would justify Everton and West Ham obliterating their transfer record for £35 million-rated Gylfi Sigurdsson in the summer, as reported by the Daily Mail.
Scoring eight and assisting 11 for a team just one place above the Premier League bottom three, you could argue that no team is as reliant on an individual player as Swansea City are on their Icelandic playmaker.
If The Swans are too good to go down, Sigurdsson definitely is.
Yet, beyond the bare statistics, the 27-year-old’s consistently stand-out performances are enough to explain such a huge price tag.
Constantly Swansea’s go-to man, Sigurdsson is arguably the best deliverer of a dead-ball the Premier League has to offer, a clinical finisher from anywhere within 25-yards of goal and capable of carving open a defence with an impudent flick; he appears the ideal candidate to replace Dimitri Payet at West Ham or, perhaps, Ross Barkley at Everton.
However, the concern must be that, like the now-departed Payet and contract rebel Romelu Lukaku, Sigurdsson’s ambitions seem to stretch beyond teams 12th and seventh in the Premier League table.
Swansea boss Paul Clement, previously assistant coach to Carlo Ancelotti at Bayern Munich and Real Madrid, stated recently that his star man would not look out of place in the midfield of a Champions League giant – and the midfielder has suggested that joining an elite clubs is his ambition.
“That’s very flattering,” Sigurdsson told Goal of his manager’s praise. “Of course, it would be a dream to play for one of these big clubs.
“Hopefully if I continue doing well for Swansea and Iceland then in the near future, I can play in a big club.”
As reported by The Guardian, Ronald Koeman admitted recently that Everton need top level European football to attract ambitious targets – a fact West Ham, rejected by the likes of Carlos Bacca and Michy Batshuayi, will identify with.
Therefore, they would appear to have a huge challenge on their hands convincing Sigurdsson to sign up at Goodison Park or the London Stadium.
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