Premier League: Sigurdsson makes an Everton Top 6 finish a real possibility

Everton get their man

It's finally gone through. Every summer there's a big transfer saga that lingers on for weeks before finally reaching its inevitable conclusion. When I wrote this piece over a month ago, the Iceland star was just 1/7 to move to Goodison Park. If the odds compilers, who rarely get these things wrong, were so adamant that the move was going to happen then why did it take a full month for it to go through?

Either way, Everton got their man in the end and there wasn't that much damage done. He's unlikely to be ready to play this weekend at Man City but I'd be surprised if he wasn't starting for the Blues by Gameweek 3 or 4.

All well and good for Everton but where does this leave Swansea?

Ian Rush, who knows a thing or two about these matters said, "In my personal opinion, I think Sigurdsson is irreplaceable. To lose that creativity, there isn't a player like that at Swansea at the moment."

That sounds about right and Paul Clement is now facing a nightmare scenario. He's lost his best player and whereas he may have money to replace him (or as close to that as possible) he's now lacking that other priceless commodity: time.

The 3.00 on Swansea to go down is looking good.

Transfer merry-go-round

One of the more interesting aspects of modern-day football. There was another example of it today with Jese Rodriguez arriving at Stoke on loan from PSG which triggered the sale of Joselu to Newcastle. The Neymar exit leading to the Eriksen/Coutinho/Dembele arrival is still ongoing.

What was meant to happen was that Ross Barkley left to Tottenham as Sigurdsson arrived and everyone was happy. But the England man's injury for up to six weeks has put a real spanner in the works. Spurs may decide there's little value in buying him now when they can't count on him till October. And Daniel Levy is smart enough to know that the longer the player goes unsold without signing a new contract, the cheaper he'll be. He's certainly not the 1/6 chance to move to White Hart Lane that he was a month ago.

Is this Everton's best Premier League squad ever?

When Juventus sold Zinedine Zidane to Real Madrid almost two decades ago, they used the money (plus a bit more) to go out and buy Gianluigi Buffon, Lilian Thuram, Pavel Nedved and Marcelo Salas. Not bad business. A few titles followed their arrival.

Now I'm not suggesting that the purchases of Jordan Pickford, Michael Keane, Davy Klassen, Sandro and Sigurdsson plus the free transfer signings Wayne Rooney and Cuco Martina are quite of the same standard as those four Juve got.

But it's hard to argue that between them they've more than made up for the exit of Romelu Lukaku. Few would also argue that this is Everton's best-ever squad in the Premier League era. 4.10 on the Toffees finishing Top 6 with Liverpool, Arsenal and even Chelsea looking rather vulnerable? Yes, please.

Where does Sigurdsson fit in?

If Barkley stays at the club it will be virtually impossible to accommodate him, Sigurdsson, Klassen and Rooney into the same side. Not that that isn't a nice problem to have.

What it might all mean is that Everton call it a day in terms of this transfer window and stop their pursuit of Olivier Giroud, valued at around £20 million.

You could then have the busy Idrissa Gueye doing most of the running and tackling, Klassen in the so-called Number 8 position performing both offensive and defensive work and Sigurdsson playing either as an inside left forward or as a more traditional playmakerrather than in-the-hole, which would be a little further up the pitch.

Rooney would then play in-the-hole behind Sandro with any one of Morgan Schneiderlin, Tom Davies, Kevin Mirallas, Yannick Bolasie or Barkley being the 11th player depending on what system Ronald Koeman decides to play and how attacking he wants the side to be.

The nice thing for him is that Sigurdsson, Rooney and Barkley can all play in different positions. For example, both Rooney and the Iceland man could also play as a false number 9 if Sandro isn't available.

It should also mean the end of a 3-5-2 or 3-4-2-1 system being deployed for the simple reason that Everton have too many riches in midfield to only play three of them.