Gylfi Sigurdsson stars for Iceland U19s

[juanpablo]

Sigurdsson is a midfielder by the way Ideal...

im sure both times i watched him he played up front?

does he play both positions on occasion?

[Hoop Blah]

Sigurdsson is a midfielder by the way Ideal...

im sure both times i watched him he played up front?

does he play both positions on occasion?

I've only ever seen him play in midfield but he's quite a skillful attacking midfielder who spends a lot of time attacking, so I guess he might've played upfront too.

Just out of interest Ideal, any further background on the glut of experienced international midfielders that would mean they're not interested in an up and coming player?

[IcelandicStokie]

He's a midfielder and plays so for the U19s, he scored again today as Iceland lost 1-2 to Bulgaria, his 6th consecutive games he scores in.

[cmonurz]

I am so calling my son Roar.

[Hoop Blah]

Just out of interest Ideal, any further background on the glut of experienced international midfielders that would mean they're not interested in an up and coming player?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marek_Sapara Slovakia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per_Ciljan_Skjelbred Norway
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roar_Strand Norway
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Tettey Norway
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vadim_Demidov Norway U21

Those five are central midfielders. In addition they often play Steffen Iversen as a midfielder.. They play a 4-3-3 formation, so there's only room for three centre mids, in addition one of those is a DMC, so there's really only room for 2 MC's.. when you have five guys already competing for those positions it would make more sense to buy a defender when you are leaking goals.
But you tell me, you seem to be the one who knows Norwegian football...

I don't know anything about Norwegian football as it happens, and I was only asking because you said

they have an abundance of international midfielders and it is simply not the area they are looking to strengthen.

I see those players you've listed do have caps, but they're not exactly established internationals way ahead of Sigurdsson are they? According to those Wiki pages

Sapara - 25 year old with 3 starts for Slovakia
Skjelbred - 20 year old with 1 start for Norway
Strand - 38 year old with 42 starts for Norway, the last one being in 2003?
Tettey - 22 year old with 2 starts for Norway
Demidov - he's not even played for Norway yet....

Maybe we just have a different definition of "abundance of international midfielders." Would these guys you've listed also fall into your description of Rosenbourg buying up the best players and not developing players? They seem quite young to be the finished article, even in such a relatively low standard of football. I think you also said they're struggling this season too, and with a new coach coming in, perhaps they are looking to add players all over the pitch.

As I said, I can't see Sigurdsson leaving Reading this summer anyway.

[Hoop Blah]

I wasn't argueing that the rumour was true, just wondering why you were so certain that they might not have been interested, we've gone off on a bit of a tangent from there because I was just interested what would backup your claims.

Fair enough the Wiki pages you provided are a bit out of date. How many more caps have these guys got now by the way?

[andrew1957]

The club have recently extended Sigurdssons contract until the end of the 2009/10 season so I cannot see him leaving but will probably go out on loan next season - may even be a season long loan.

RFC have said they have high hopes for him but cannot see him breaking into the first team yet.