Swansea reject second Everton bid worth £45m for Gylfi Sigurdsson

Swansea City remain resolute in their £50m valuation of Gylfi Sigurdsson, having rejected a second bid worth up to £45m from Everton for the Iceland international.

Everton had a £40m offer for the 27-year-old rejected a fortnight ago, when Sigurdsson stunned Swansea officials and team-mates by pulling out of the club’s pre-season tour of the United States, and an improved deal met a similar fate on Monday. That bid is understood to have been £40m plus £5m in add-ons.

Talks between the clubs, however, are expected to continue with Ronald Koeman keen to add the midfielder to his expensive recruitment drive this week. Everton play their first competitive game of the season, a Europa League third qualifying round first leg against MFK Ruzomberok of Slovenia, on Thursday.

The Swansea owners, Steve Kaplan and Jason Levien, issued a strongly worded statement warning Sigurdsson’s suitors they would not be bullied into selling the club’s player of the year following Everton’s initial offer. They also questioned whether the former Tottenham Hotspur player had been tapped up with Sigurdsson believed to be keen on a switch to Goodison Park.

Their position has not changed despite Sigurdsson insisting he was not in the right frame of mind to go on the US tour. Swansea believe their valuation of a consistently creative talent to be fair in a transfer market where Manchester City paid £50m for the right-back Kyle Walker.

With negotiations continuing, however, the likelihood of a deal remains. Everton have spent around £100m this summer on Jordan Pickford, Michael Keane, Davy Klaassen, Wayne Rooney and Sandro Ramirez but Koeman wants to add Sigurdsson plus another forward to the squad before the Premier League season begins.