Leighton James Says ‘Get Sigurdsson Off Corners’

Former Swansea City winger Leighton James believes that Swansea City should add some variety to their corners – suggesting that someone else – other than Gylfi Sigurdsson take them.

Despite being by far our best set piece taker in the squad, and delivering some absolutely superb deliveries during Sunday’s home win against Leicester, Leighton James reckons that for some corners – he should be in the box and get some like Martin Olsson to take them from the right side.

Personally, I don’t get his logic here. It’s very rare that a ball would fall kindly for Sigurdsson to strike home from a corner, there’s usually opposition players around to block them or most defences simply clear the balls into safer positions. What sometimes happens as well is that the ball often gets sent back out to the corner taker to re-take, meaning Sigurdsson – who takes all of corners, gets the chance to make a better cross from a better and closer position.

Surely the likes of Leroy Fer and Fernando Llorente – not to mention centre back Alfie Mawson all offer a good enough threat to keep opposition defenders guessing and to have the three of them trying to get on the end of crosses from a set-piece taker like Gylfi Sigurdsson?

Leighton James said:

‘One thing that baffles me about Gylfi is that he ALWAYS takes our corners,’

‘Every time. Yet he’s our top goalscorer!

‘There’s no net by the corner… my message to Paul Clement is to get Sigurdsson in the box, or on the edge of the penalty area and give the opposition something else to think about.

‘We’re a little too easy to plan against from set pieces and I’m sure that’s an area Clement will look to improve, given time. What about Martin Olsson running across and taking a left-footed in-swinging corner?

‘We could use some variety.’

In his defence at least, we’re not a team well known for scoring directly from corners very often, Mawson has given us more of a threat and he’s already scored 3 goals in 6 games, but I still think our better players in the air would prefer our best crosser to continue sending the balls into the box. It’s part of the season as well why he plays out wide. Other than to make room for him in a our preferred 4-3-3 setup, he has the freedom to either move inside to link-up with Llorente or to stay wide and put crosses into the box.

What do you think? Should Sigurdsson take less corners for us?