Swansea City boss Clement wants to keep Sigurdsson and Llorente

Swansea boss Paul Clement is determined to keep the club's best players during the January transfer window.

Influential midfielder Gylfi Sigurdsson and top-scorer Fernando Llorente have been linked with Everton and Chelsea respectively.

But with Swansea 19th in the Premier League, Clement is unwilling to sell either of them.

"You need to keep your best players and they are two of the best players the team has got," he said.

"I want to keep Gylfi here, he's similar to Llorente. We're in a situation where we want to win games and if you've got a chance of winning games at this level you've got to keep your best players.

"You'd possibly expect interest, but they're signed and contracted here.

"I can't say anything will or won't happen, there's a lot of speculation and gossip, but there's been no conversation between me, the players, the players and the club or the players and other clubs. So it's just business as usual, getting down to work."

Advice from Ancelotti

Clement was appointed Swansea's head coach on 3 January, leaving his role as assistant manager of German champions Bayern Munich.

The 45-year-old was working under the vastly experienced and successful Italian manager Carlo Ancelotti, who he had also assisted at Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea.

Carlo Ancelotti and Paul Clement have worked together in four different countries

Now having taken only his second managerial job - he was in charge of Derby from 2015 to 2016 - Clement has to adapt to the needs of a club of Swansea's size trying to keep their players, as opposed to his previous employers around Europe whose enormous budgets allowed them to cherry-pick world-class signings.

"I spoke to Carlo about that and it's a different challenge," said Clement.

"When you're at the biggest clubs, you can choose which player you want and there's a good chance you're going to get him.

"It's interesting. It's a new thing for me really, the January transfer window. I did a couple of things at Derby but it was in a different situation.

"This has been the phone constantly going with me, the owners trying to get things right."

Clement completed his first signing as Swansea head coach on Thursday with the £4m acquisition of Dutch international winger Luciano Narsingh from PSV Eindhoven.

The 26-year-old had been identified as a transfer target before Clement's appointment, with the Swans' chairman Huw Jenkins and head of recruitment David Leadbeater playing prominent roles in the club's recruitment.

Clement also has a say in transfers and, having worked with similar recruitment structures at his previous clubs, he is happy with Swansea's model.

Paul Clement has taken coach Claude Makelele (left) with him to Swansea having worked with him under Carlo Ancelotti (right) at PSG

"It's good, I haven't got any problem with it," he added.

"You gather the intelligence and opinion of people who know football and know players, and then you come together and make a collective decision.

"That way of doing things, there is less chance of making errors than if one person takes responsibility. So I'm comfortable with that.

"Having worked with Carlo over a few years at different clubs, that's the way clubs have worked.

"It's a collaboration between recruitment people, technical directors and ownership as well to get the right people in."