How does Gylfi compare to JDG or Michu at attacking midfield?
Nathan Lewis returns in statistical form as he runs an eye over the return of The Gylf, and whether we'd be better off throwing money at Jonathan De Guzman
It’s nearly over. Ben Davies and Michel Vorm seem to both be a signature away from moving to Spurs, with Gylfi Sigurdsson coming the other way. While the fairness and quality of this deal for the Swans is still to be debated, it is time for us to consider the qualities of the Icelandic international, and how he will slot back into the Swansea philosophy.
The mention of Sigurdsson returning to the Liberty is exciting, due to his impressive loan spell under Brendan Rodgers in our first Premier League season. A deal for him to re-join us for the next season seemed to be close to completion before Rodgers moved to Liverpool, and Spurs came in with what you would imagine were more impressive personal terms. Gazumped.
The hole left by Gylfi was immediately filled in impressive fashion by Michu, who scored 18 league goals in his debut season before suffering from niggling injury problems in 2013/14. Meanwhile, having joined Spurs, Sigurdsson struggled to force his way into the first team, and was largely used as a substitute or out on the left wing.
Given his proven talent when playing through the middle, it’s easy to see Sigurdsson thriving when placed back into the Swansea line-up and at first glance, Gylfi and Michu would appear to be similar players. In their respective spells with Swansea, they were both the centre of attacking moves, and scored an impressive haul of goals.
That being said, for the first time in what seems like forever the Swans have a genuine striker capable of leading the line. With Bony providing a focal point for attacks, it is no longer the primary purpose of the attacking midfielder to provide goals. Whether Monk sets out his team in a 4-4-2 diamond, or in our more familiar 4-2-3-1, the main role of an attacking midfielder would surely be to slide passes through to the striker(s) and create chance after chance (see more on this here). Of course, if he can occasionally pop one in from long range, that wouldn’t hurt!
So how would Sigurdsson slot into this role? A comparison of Michu (2012/13), Sigurdsson (2012/13) and de Guzman (2013/14) makes for some interesting reading, especially when thinking about a more creative, assist-making attacking midfielder. Michu storms the ‘goals scored’ competition with eighteen, compared to three and four for The Gylf and Jono respectively, but he struggles to match the chance creation, pass completion and assists of the other two.
Gylfi created 25 chances in just 1231 minutes (one every 49.24mins) of game time, compared to Michu’s 34 in 3004 (one every 88.35minutes) and made double the amount of assists (four to Michu's two). Clearly, this shows that Sigurdsson has the potential to be a more creative, team-focused attacking midfielder than the passionate Spaniard. An interesting development however, is de Guzman being more impressive than both Gylfi and Michu in terms of pass completion (88% as opposed to 84.4% and 80.5% respectively), chances created (50 in 2357mins - one every 40.74 minutes) and key passes (51 to Michu's 25 & Gylfi's 34).
He is also marginally more impressive defensively than Sigurdsson and Michu, but this could be due to him playing alongside Leon or Jose Canas for large chunks of last season. There are whispers that Gylfi returning to the Liberty means that we will not see Jono in a Swansea shirt this season, but looking at the statistics, it’s difficult to argue that the Dutchman wouldn’t be better value for money than our impending new arrival.
Perhaps with more game time, and being played in his favourite position, The Gylf will storm next season, sliding passes through to the strikers and smashing in long-range efforts. The prospect of him setting up the likes of Bony and Gomis is very exciting, and the return of this impressive player can only be good news for the Swans as they try to maintain their status as an established Premier League side.
Statistics used in this article sourced from www.whoscored.com. You can follow Nathan on Twitter @nathdavidlewis