Nine goals, 13 assists. With Gylfi Sigurdsson now sold to Everton, those are the magic numbers to Swansea’s recruiting staff. That’s what they have to replace.
Sigurdsson’s sale will reportedly earn the club somewhere within the region of £40m-£45m, but it’s unlikely that anything like that figure will be reinvested in a single player. Consequently, Swansea - with Paul Clement’s coaching and Daniel Altman’s due diligence - will engage in replacement by committee. The aim over these final two weeks of the transfer window will be to spread the Sigurdsson money evenly throughout the team, compensating for the loss of the Icelander with generalised improvement.
Of course, that’s harder than it sounds. Based on historical precedent, most transfers appear to have only a coin flip’s chance of success and so the odds of an unanimously positive outcome across numerous deals is significantly lower. Analytical guidance will help, so too Clement’s wide perspective on the game, but most of the variables remain. But which areas do Swansea target now and what do they actually need?
According to reports, a deal in principle has been agreed for former forward Wilfried Bony. It’s unclear yet as to whether Bony will actually move, but that it's being discussed suggests Clement has the appetite for a change in formation. Bony would command the kind of salary that would make him an instant starter, so - unless Fernando Llorente were to leave before the close of the window - his arrival would necessitate a move towards a two-forward system.
Bony is not the same player who left the Liberty Stadium in 2015. He has scored just eight Premier League goals in two-and-a-half years and, during his occasional appearances for Manchester City and Stoke, has looked like a player bereft of confidence. Confidence is of critical importance to any forward, but particularly one so reliant on his technique; without those feathery touches in the build-up stages, Bony becomes highly limited.
Still, he, Llorente and the on-loan Tammy Abraham would constitute a well-stocked forward line, with Jordan Ayew also able to play through the middle if necessary.
Saturday’s opening game with Southampton was admittedly slightly out of context. Until the window closes and Clement has the players he wants, it’s not really fair to judge his side. Nevertheless, the performance at St Mary’s did expose some obvious deficiencies - and not the sort which will be cured by players returning from injury.
“Presence” is a semi-mythical quality, admittedly, but there would appear to be a severe lack of brutishness at the heart of Swansea’s midfield. Leon Britton is a gifted and tough footballer despite his size, but is very much in his career’s twilight, while Tom Carroll and Ki Sung-Yeung are very much finesse players. Roque Mesa has been signed and is apparently thrillingly talented in possession, but also lacks the requisite physicality to be a menace.
Other than possibly Leroy Fer, against whom asterisks remain, there isn’t a midfield player under contract who an opposition player would dread facing. There are plenty to admire, a couple to really like, but nobody who will keep a rival player awake for an extra couple of hours the night before a game.
It may sound like a throwaway, generic remark, but maybe that needs to change before September? By pivoting slightly away from the house style, Clement has created the need for imperatives beyond just attractive retention. His team finished last season averaging just over 48 per cent possession and began the new one with an anaemic 40.4 per cent; they need to prepare for life without the ball. Not every fixture will follow the same pattern as the Southampton game, but the Swans' inability to protect the back four was certainly troubling - it was even something that Clement voiced his displeasure at during his press-conference.
So that’s top of the agenda: not a hatchet man or an outright bastard, but someone from Beyond The Wall. Sigurdsson’s absence is concerning and his contribution, even if just by aggregate, must be replaced. Of more concern though, Swansea appear to be a side caught between philosophies; pretty enough to still conform to their ideals, but perhaps too soft-skinned for the weather coming their way.
Whatever else the club do over the next fifteen days and whatever route they plot around the Sigurdsson problem, their midfield still needs toughening and their transition needs to be completed. Being neither one type of team nor another tends to lead it to a bad place.
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