BRENDAN RODGERS wants Gylfi Sigurdsson to be his first signing as Liverpool manager after making his priority an overhaul of the club’s attack. Rodgers hopes Sigurdsson will reject the chance to join Swansea, his former employer, and move to Anfield instead.
One of Rodgers’ final acts at Swansea was to persuade their chairman, Huw Jenkins, to break the club’s transfer record and agree an £6.8m deal with Hoffenheim for Sigurdsson, but the Iceland international has yet to sign a contract, leaving the way open for him to change his mind.
Should he do so, Rodgers hopes to step in and take Sigurdsson to Liverpool for the same £6.8m fee. Rodgers sees the player — who scored seven goals in 18 league matches in an attacking midfield role at Swansea last season — as being able to add a new dimension to the forward play of a Liverpool team who were too reliant on Luis Suarez last season.
He wants Sigurdsson to fulfil a commitment to travel to Swansea to give the Welsh club the first opportunity to persuade him to join them, but knowing Liverpool are lurking could sway the 22-year-old to rejoin Rodgers, who also worked with him at Reading.
Rodgers has a deal with Jenkins not to poach any players in the next 12 months already at Swansea but he regards Sigurdsson as a different case. “Glyfi came to Swansea because I was there as manager and his scoring record was fantastic,” said Rodgers. “I pushed the club to make an agreement [to sign Sigurdsson permanently] and they did that in terms of the fee — and agreed the salary. So I have said to Huw, ‘I’m not going to do anything untoward. This is a guy you want, but it is down to Gylfi’. If he comes on the market I have to be interested. The agreement is there for him to come out of Germany. His only scar was that the manager changed for him in Germany and he ended up out of the team. He knows that I rate his qualities and abilities. I said to Huw, ‘If I speak to the kid I’ll tell him to speak to the new manager, whoever that is’. But if he’s not comfortable with that, he’s in the market place then — and I have to look at him.”
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Theo Walcott, yet to agree a new contract at Arsenal, might emerge as another option. “I’ve got a good idea where the group [Liverpool] is at. The biggest thing is goals. We’re defensively strong. They need more goals. Whether that’s going to involve bringing players in or adapting the style to have a more high-pressing game we’ll see,” Rodgers said.
He wants to identify who will play the midfield “controller” role — essential to the Spanish-influenced possession game he promotes.