Why Swansea City need to drop inconsistent and underperforming winger

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Defeat to Hull City on Saturday means Swansea City are right back in a Premier League relegation scrap.

Wayne Routledge celebrates his teammates at Swansea City

Following a great start to life in south Wales, Paul Clement’s Swansea City were found wanting on Saturday afternoon up against fellow strugglers Hull City. First half injuries to Angel Rangel and Fernando Llorente didn’t help the Swans cause, but it could have been a very different story had one man buried the Welsh club’s two best chances either side of half time.

The first clear cut chance of the game came to Swansea’s Wayne Routledge following a neat through ball by Gylfi Sigurdsson. The Icelandic international put Routledge through one-on-one with Eldin Jakupovic, and whilst it was a smart stop via the feet of the Hull goalkeeper, Routledge would surely have hoped to finish such an opportunity.

There was little to separate the two teams for much of the game, but shortly after the break came another good opportunity for Swansea and Routledge. Having pounced at a Tom Carroll cross, Jakupovic failed to remove the danger, and whilst stranded, the ball fell to Routledge, who could ultimately only fire his shot high and wide.

It ought to be re-iterared that Routledge’s first effort required a very decent save and he was under severe pressure when the second fell at his feet, but even still, an offensive Premier League player should be disappointed not to have buried one of those chances.

Swansea City fans are quickly growing frustrated with the former England under-21 international, who is now 32 and has played more than 200 games for the Swans. The table displayed above shows the one glaring weakness in his game; final product.

Two goals and one assist from 24 appearances is a poor return, and has led some Swansea supporters clamouring to see Luciano Narsingh preferred to their long serving Englishman, or even wishing that Mo Barrow hadn’t been loaned out to Leeds United.

We could see more of Luciano Narsingh this season

By comparison, Narsingh already has two assists this season, one more than Routledge, despite Routledge having played more than 11 times as many minutes as Narsingh. Jefferson Montero has also equalled Routledge’s assist tally, despite playing just 343 minutes this season, whilst Gylfi Sigurdsson’s record is incomparable, having scored 8 and assisted 11, making him the Premier League leader in terms of assists.