How good is Gylfi Sigurdsson?

By Simon Wright – Follow me on Twitter @Siwri88

After a worrying winter which had them slipping into serious relegation trouble, Swansea City fans can relax and look forward to a sound summer with the prospect of Premier League football once again next season.

The main reason for their recent upturn in fortunes has been the performances and goals of Gylfi Sigurdsson. On Saturday, he scored the only goal in a fairly forgettable encounter with Chelsea at the Liberty Stadium. Swansea fans won’t care about that – it was another three points that took them to 12^th in the table and past the 40-point barrier. A large part of that has been down to Sigurdsson who has inspired the Swans away from trouble.

The question is – how good is Gylfi Sigurdsson?

Set-Piece Specialist

One of Sigurdsson’s great skills is his ability to cause real problems from set-pieces. Arsenal, Aston Villa and Crystal Palace can all vouch for that in the past two seasons. Sigurdsson has tremendous ability to get a ball over the wall from a direct free-kick and give goalkeepers a real test. Very often he hits the target and on many occasions, goalies have been picking the ball out of their net as they are beaten by a ‘Sigurdsson Special.’

Few can match Gylfi at this in the Premier League. Only Willian of Chelsea and Tottenham’s Christian Eriksen are just as accurate and deadly from free-kicks. Sigurdsson has also taken this into the 12-yard battle from the penalty spot. The combination of this and his long-range shooting ability has taken the Icelandic international to his best return for goals in a season, scoring 11 in 2015/2016.

In fact with his return of nine in this calendar year, only Sergio Aguero and Harry Kane have scored more in the Premier League in 2016. That’s not bad company to be behind.

The Spurs Experience

This is Sigurdsson’s second spell at Swansea and it is just as fruitful as his loan period he had at the club under Brendan Rodgers in 2012. In fact, Rodgers was very keen to take him to Liverpool FC, but he chose to link up with Tottenham Hotspur, becoming the first signing of Head Coach at the time, Andre Villas-Boas.

So did it work out at Tottenham for him?

A return of eight league goals in 58 appearances over two seasons would suggest not. That wasn’t all down to Sigurdsson though. He wasn’t always a regular starter for Spurs and it took him the best part of six months in his first season at White Hart Lane to really get going.

His best form in a Tottenham shirt was arguably whilst Tim Sherwood was at the helm. Opportunities were not frequent though, with Eriksen and Nacer Chadli among those in the pecking order ahead of Gylfi.

The return to Swansea in July 2014 for £8.8m in a deal that saw Ben Davies and Michel Vorm move in the opposite direction was the right decision. It has allowed the chance for him to be expressive creatively and become the main man at Swansea. Realistically, he wasn’t ever going to get that at Tottenham.

Does this mean that he had his chance at a big team? Remember, his Spurs experience came when Tottenham were in transition mode and seemed more like a selling club with the likes of Gareth Bale and Rafael van der Vaart departing.  Sigurdsson still has time on his side to make the grade at one of the Premier League or European superpowers. Swansea though will be making it very hard for anyone to prize him away though from south Wales.

Chasing records

Sigurdsson celebrates his winning goal against Chelsea at the weekend

Sigurdsson’s winner at the weekend against Chelsea inspired Swansea to their first win against the Londoners since 1981. Not only that, it was his 25^th Premier League strike for the Welsh outfit as he closes the gap on becoming the club’s all-time Premier League top scorer.

That feat is currently held by Wilfried Bony and Sigurdsson has already expressed his desire at getting this record before the season’s end.

He looks like a happy footballer at the moment. When he rejoined Swansea, he said. “I really enjoyed my time here last time (on-loan in 2012). I know the club, I know the players and I obviously know the fans and the city as well, so that wasn’t that difficult for me.”

It is a far cry from the player who did start the campaign with a number of off-colour performances. In fact, he was even dropped by ex-manager Garry Monk for a few games around the autumn period, with Modou Barrow noticeably being preferred for a home Monday night encounter against Stoke City in October infront of the Sky cameras.

Sigurdsson didn’t look happy then. There were reports of a falling-out between him and Monk, although this was denied by the player. What was clear is his club form at this stage of the season was not what it is now. 

Whatever happened in those final months between Sigurdsson and Monk, he has rediscovered his form under new manager Francesco Guidolin. Guidolin has made him the focal point of the team again and this has allowed Sigurdsson to become one of the Premier League’s star players of 2016.

It is no surprise then that Swansea have won six of their last 12 matches and are now heading towards another solid season in mid-table after a troubled period in the autumn and winter months.

Internationally, Sigurdsson is a national hero. Icelandic Footballer of the Year for five of the past six years, he will be relishing his opportunity to take on Europe’s finest at Euro 2016. It will be a proud honour for him to be part of Iceland’s maiden adventure at a major international tournament.

If he continues to deliver in the remaining weeks of this season and in France this summer, the sky is the limit for Gylfi Sigurdsson.

He has all the qualities on his day to be a wonderful footballer and he is pleasure to watch play the game too. It will be interesting to see how he performs if he got another chance at a leading club side.