Tottenham Hotspur and Swansea City have confirmed a swap deal that will see midfielder Gylfi Sigurdsson leave White Hart Lane and head to the Liberty Stadium in exchange for Michel Vorm, Ben Davies and an undisclosed fee.
The deal has Davies joining Spurs on a five-year contract and Vorm penning a four-year deal while Sigurdsson returns to the Welsh club where he spent time on loan in 2012 on a four-year contract.
The 21-year-old Davies broke into the Swansea first team in 2012 and enjoyed an immediate impact, winning their Young Player of the Year accolade the past two seasons. In 2012/13 he made 44 appearances for the Swans and helped the club lift their first major trophy, the Capital One Cup. Last season he retained that strong form scoring twice in 34 league appearances as the Swans finished 12th in the top-flight. At Spurs, Davies is expected to secure the left-back spot, a position that proved to be Tottenham’s achilles heel during last year’s troublesome season.
Vorm arrives in North London after three seasons with the Swans during which time he celebrated the Capital One Cup title while picking up Supporters’ Player of the Year, Players’ Player and the Away Player awards along the way. All in all he made 97 appearances for Swansea. Vorm’s decision to accept the transfer is a curious one, after Arsenal backup Lukasz Fabianski signed with the squad earlier this season, intent on finding first team action. Instead of competing with Fabianski, Vorm has decided to leave the club in favor of competing with Lloris. Vorm, who was in Holland’s World Cup squad this summer, will prove a vital deputy to Lloris and could challenge the Frenchman should he find form and avoid injury.
Sigurdsson, who scored seven goals in an 18 match loan spell with Swansea in 2011/12, returns at the Liberty after two seasons at Spurs where he scored eight goals in 58 league appearances. Despite the output, Sigurdsson never established himself as a starter at White Hart Lane but did manage to score some fantastic goals off the bench. Spurs will miss that super-sub factor but, under Gary Monk, Sigurdsson finds himself in the promising position of becoming an everyday starters although it won’t come easy as the Swans already boast a talented midfield that includes Jonathan De Guzman, Ki Sung-Yeung, Jonjo Shelvey, Nathan Dyer, Wayne Routledge, Leon Britton, Jose Canas and Pablo Hernandez.