Frank Lampard admitted what everyone already knew during the US tour when he said Everton needed a ‘number six’ and one thing that the Blues are also aware of is that Idrissa Gueye can fulfil that role. Gueye has been strongly linked with a return to Goodison Park in recent days and the ECHO understands there is genuine interest but some six years on from when he originally signed for Everton, what might the Senegalese international offer now?
For all the expensive flops that have blighted Farhad Moshiri’s tenure as owner, Gueye, a relative snip at £7.1million when his release clause was met to prise him from relegated Aston Villa, represented the club’s first director of football Steve Walsh’s most-astute purchase. He excelled in the anchor man role for the next three years before making a blockbuster £30million switch to petrodollar-fuelled Paris Saint-Germain in 2019.
Evertonians know all about the kind of player that Gueye was but the big question must be after three years in the French capital, is he the force that he once was? He’ll be 33 in September – the same age that Paul Gascoigne was when he joined the Blues back in 2000, but other than both being central midfielders, the pair are of course very different.
