There will come a point next summer, if Swansea somehow pull off the escape, that the usual bonuses for survival will be shared among the squad. If the others had any self-awareness they’d see to it that Gylfi Sigurdsson walks away with the vast majority of the loot.
That is not to say Swansea will stay up. Their deficiencies are such that they are still far more likely to go down than survive. But they have a fighting chance and that is down almost in its entirety to the one legitimately excellent player in their squad.
Certainly, Sigurdsson has had help at sporadic moments during the season and increasingly it is coming from Fernando Llorente, a World Cup winner who scored twice here to make it four in four games.
But it is the Icelander who is not only steering the leaking old ship but also, on occasion, jumping off the back and pushing it as well.
He scored the penalty that put them ahead in this extremely important match and then it was his quick-thinking that made Llorente’s first. For some context, in Swansea’s last eight games, during which so many of the squad have looked hopelessly disinterested, he has scored four and made four. Those really are the numbers of a man with a club on his back.
To that end, Bob Bradley owes him a lot, given he is under pressure after a poor start at the club. Two Sigurdsson-inspired wins in his last three give the situation a far brighter outlook.
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