Neil Taylor: Swansea defender says Premier League TV deal will help club keep stars

Neil Taylor joined Swansea from Wrexham in 2010

Swansea City defender Neil Taylor says the club is under less pressure to sell players due to the money coming in from the new Premier League television deal.

Top-flight clubs will share more than £5bn from 2016 to 2019, a 71% increase on the previous three-year deal.

Gylfi Sigurdsson and Andre Ayew have been linked with moves away from the Liberty Stadium, but Taylor says the club will not need to sell their stars.

"Teams don't have to sell like they used to," said Wales' Taylor.

"I think what you're going to find is that with the money coming to the Premier League teams don't have to sell. That might mean a few more clubs hanging on to their best players."

Swansea head coach Francesco Guidolin has said he expects interest in midfielder Sigurdsson this summer.

The 26-year-old Iceland international won Swansea City's supporters' and players' player of the year awards after scoring 11 goals in the club's successful fight against relegation.

He is under contract at Swansea until 2018, but has been linked with a number of big clubs, while Ayew has said his future depends on a summer discussion with chairman Huw Jenkins.

"It's the same every year for our club, we have players that come through, they do well," said Taylor, who was visiting his old school Ysgol Brynhyfryd in Ruthin before joining up with the Wales squad for their training camp in Portugal.

"Gylfi is someone that has come now in two spells and done well for us. We want to keep hold of them obviously, Andre has scored goals.

"But just like when we lost Wilfried Bony and people down the years and we lost Sigurdsson the last time, we do lose important players because they get poached by bigger teams.

"It's important that we try and keep them and add to that this season because we've realised how hard it is."

Wilfried Bony (L) and Joe Allen (R) were popular figures at Swansea before leaving for Manchester City and Liverpool respectively

Swansea have been linked with summer moves for two of their former players - Manchester City striker Wilfried Bony and Liverpool midfielder Joe Allen.

Ivory Coast international Bony joined City from Swansea for £25m in 2015, while Allen left for Liverpool for £15m in 2012.

Both have struggled to nail down starting places at the north-west clubs and Taylor admits he would be delighted to see them return to west Wales.

"There is a lot more work to be done than just somebody to say that we want them back. You have to talk about money, you have to talk about whether the players want to come back here," Taylor said.

"They are both at big football clubs that are fighting for trophies, like Liverpool in the Europa League. There's a lot more to happen before we bring those players in but people of that ilk are definitely people that we should be looking at."