He averaged 26 passes for Iceland in Euro 2016
And as an Iceland supporter you couldn't even imagine how pissed off I was seeing him so poorly utilized.
We chose Jon Dadi Bodvarsson upfront instead of Gylfi, and Gylfi in defensive midfield over Emil Halfredsson.
Gylfi was forced to defend rather than attack, which made me furious. We played gobshite football during that tournament.
I don't understand why the best attacker should be wasted in defense when we had similar or better defenders on the bench?
Gylfi only made 127 passes the entire tournament, and
45 of them were in the 5-2 loss to France.
Before the loss, Iceland didn't lose once during the entire tournament.
Gylfi only averaged 21 passes per match.
But in qualifying, Gylfi doesn't play DM but rather AM or CM, which means he has the free-role to roam forward freely without having to defend nearly as much as he did during the tournament.
Normally he averages 60+ passes per match for Iceland in Euro/World Cup qualifiers.
Deadball Gylfi is spent, I've seen him totally anonymous in game against low opposition and he's supposed to be this amazing playmaker.
I've never seen him anonymous in a game in my life. He always scores, assists or creates a chance that SHOULD have been a goal or assist.
Even when he was playing on the wing.
It's a rarity to see him not contribute in some form.
Which is not something you can say about the other Playmakers in the league, who don't score or assist nearly as often as him.
They accumulate a large % of their goals & assists in fewer, more irrelevant matches and cannot deliver when it matters.