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After such promise in the summer, Everton’s season looks to be drifting into turmoil.

The Toffees have managed just three wins in their previous ten matches. On top of the already well precedented defensive issues, there seems to be a continued lack of creativity and goal threat.

This has led to criticism of Everton’s most expensive signing and key creative spark, Gylfi Sigurdsson. Sigurdsson, of course, signed for Everton in the summer of 2017 for a hefty fee of £45m.

In a difficult first season at the club, plagued by managerial changes, a heavy price tag and untimely injuries, Sigurdsson still managed to return a satisfactory four goals and three assists in 25 Premier League starts.

Under a new era with a new manager, it was expected Sigurdsson would spearhead a more attack-minded Blues midfield and use his passing abilities to unlock opposition defences. However, having already made 27 league appearances this season, Sigurdsson is yet to improve on last season's assist tally of three.

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So where is it going wrong for the Icelandic playmaker?

In order to add perspective to his analysis, a comparison (using both Understat and Wyscout) of his output in the league this season between Sigurdsson and the highly-rated Tottenham midfielder Christian Eriksen is revealing.

Goals

This is one of the success stories for Sigurdsson this season, with his tally of nine goals so far is two short of his best ever Premier League goals return. He has scored 25% of Everton’s Premier League goals this season, with his average of 0.38 goals per 90 minutes this season legitimised by his Expected Goals (xG) average of 0.35.

In comparison, Eriksen has managed just five goals in the current campaign. His xG average is significantly less at just 0.17, suggesting he has had around a 17% chance of scoring a goal per 90 minutes this season.

In terms of shots, according to Wyscout, both are posting a very similar output. The Icelandic is averaging 2.33 shots per 90 minutes with an accuracy rating of 42.9%. Meanwhile Eriksen is averaging 2.22 shots per 90 minutes with an accuracy rating of 45.9%.

Attacking play

In terms of attacking play, both are posting similar statistics, but Sigurdsson does edge the Tottenham playmaker. When is comes to offensive duels, Sigurdsson can boast more per 90 minutes and with a better success rate in those duels. He is averaging 7.92 with a success rate of 54.5%. Meanwhile Eriksen’s average is reduced at 5.65 per 90 minutes with a success rate of 49,.4%.

In terms of dribbling, again Sigurdsson can better his Danish counterpart. He averages 3.11 dribbles per 90 minutes with a success rate of 69.5%. This is compared to Eriksen’s reduced amount of 2.16 dribblers per 90 minutes with a success rate of 67.6%.

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Sigurdsson's creativity

This is where Eriksen begins to prevail over Sigurdsson and where a lot of Sigurdsson’s criticism has been placed.

In terms of passes, Sigurdsson is involved in substantially less than Eriksen. He averages just 27.12 passes per 90 minutes with a success rate of 74.7%. Eriksen, however, averages 53.92 passes per 90 minutes with a success rate of 83.1%.

In terms of forward passess, one of the key skill set required by a number 10, again Eriksen is making more. He is averaging 14.89 per 90 with a success rate of 65.7%, with Sigurdsson managing just 11.27 per 90.

(Image: PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo)

What is interesting though is Sigurdsson can boast a better completion rate than Eriksen at 74.7%, suggesting that he is more selective with his forward passing, only attempting passes he knows can be executed and not forfeiting possession cheaply.

This point is reinforced when we look at passes into the box. Eriksen’s average of 3.62 per 90 minutes betters Sigurdsson’s average of 3.38 only marginally, yet Sigurdsson’s completion percentage of 62.7% is much better than Eriksen’s 55.5%.

In terms of the big one, assists, Eriksen is domineering this season. Only Chelsea’s Eden Hazard can better Eriksen’s tally of nine so far this campaign, which is treble the return of Sigurdsson.

But how fair is it to assess both players on their assist tallies given the differences in quality between Tottenham and Everton this season?

Tottenham currently occupy the top three in the Premier League and have an attack which includes two of the Premier League’s top eight goal scorers this campaign.

Meanwhile, both of Everton’s two main strikers - Cenk Tosun and Dominc Calvert-Lewin - have failed to secure a regular spot in Marco Silva’s side and have managed just seven league goals between them.

As a result, Richarlison has often been deployed as makeshift centre-forward. Despite a decent return of ten league goals, Richarlison naturally lacks that striker’s knowledge on where to make defence splitting runs and identifying key spaces for midfielders to pass the ball into.

A better method of analysis would be to compare both players Expected Assist (xA) stats. xA measures the likelihood that a given pass will become a goal assist, irrespective of whether that chance is converted by the attacker.

This season, Eriksen’s xA average is 0.24, whilst Sigurdsson’s is 0.19. This demonstrates that the passes supplied by both players have around a 20% chance per 90 minutes of leading to an assist.

Below are a few examples of key passes from Sigurdsson that failed to register as an assist due to poor forward play.

In the below sequence of images taken from Watford v Everton last weekend, Sigurdsson has collected the ball in the middle of the opposition half. After a smart turn, he sees the run of Cenk Tosun in behind the defensive line and looks to thread the ball to his teammate.

(Image: WyScout)

The weight of Sigurdsson’s pass is perfect and puts Tosun in behind the defensive line with the option to either shoot first time or run the ball into the 18-yard box. Unfortunately, due to poor timing of the run, the flag goes up for offside against the Everton striker.

(Image: WyScout)

This below sequence of images was taken from Everton v Wolves earlier this season. After some tidy dribbling skills on the edge of the box, Sigurdsson plays a smart through ball for the on rushing Theo Walcott.

(Image: WyScout)

The weight of the pass again is perfect allowing the winger to take the ball on in his stride. Sadly, Walcott was unable to apply the finish from that favorable position and the chance leads to nothing.

(Image: WyScout)

The difference from Swansea

With Everton’s failures so far to replace their former formidable striker Romelu Lukaku, Sigurdsson hasn’t played behind an in-form striker since his final season at Swansea. In that season, Sigurdsson built a strong partnership with striker Fernando Llorente.

Llorente managed an impressive 15 Premier League goals that season and was instrumental up top for the Swans, eventually landing a move to Tottenham Hotspur as a result.

Coincidentally, Sigurdsson registered his Premier League best tally of 13 assists that season. Was he a level above the player we’ve seen at Goodison Park so far or did having a reliable striking partner aid his return?

Again, relying on the xA metric (according to Wyscout) his xA average for that final season at Swansea was 0.2, which is nearly identical to his average of 0.19 this season.

This illustrates the quality of pass is no different now to what it was in his final season for Swansea - but instead at Everton, there has simply been a much depleted quality of finish from that resulting pass.

In the below sequence of images taken from Swansea v Manchester City in the 2016/17 season, Sigurdsson plays a smart chipped pass into Llorente. It’s the type of pass Everton fans have seen the Icelandic make before.

(Image: WyScout)

Llorente holds off the defender before turning brilliantly on the ball and firing his shot into the top corner of the Man City goal.

(Image: WyScout)

This perhaps highlighting the margins between a clever pass resulting in an assist or in a wasted opportunity.

What next?

While the current narrative amongst most seems to be Gylfi Sigurdsson simply isn’t good enough to be Everton’s main creative spark, it would seem the statistics would suggest differently.

When put toe-to-toe with one of the most highly recognised playmakers in the Premier League, Sigurdsson not only matches him, but can in some aspects actually better him. This is all while playing for a largely underperforming side faltering in mid-table.

When analysing his underwhelming assist return in further detail, it can be seen that there are further influences impacting his return - most notably a lack of cutting edge in front of goal to finish those chances created by Sigurdsson.

Identifying a top-class striker in the summer will be key for Marcel Brands. In doing so, not only will Everton finally have a focal point to their attack, but they may also just unleash the best version of their key creative playmaker.