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.
Super-fit Gueye, who was known for the amount of ground he’d cover, remains a supreme athlete and has actually played more games over the past three seasons as PSG (111) than he did in his trio of campaigns with Everton (108). Although he is now deemed surplus to requirements for Christophe Galtier’s side, he still featured in 26 Ligue 1 matches last term and netted three goals (four in all competitions) – a better haul than he ever managed for the Blues.
Based on Comparisonator’s Similarity Comparison algorithm, Kalvin Phillips is deemed to be the Premier League player closest to Gueye in style with a match of 84% and while Everton aren’t able to match the £42million that champions Manchester City paid Leeds United to acquire the 26-year-old England international, perhaps bringing back their former charge could represent more of a Gareth Barry style purchase rather than Fabian Delph.
When importing Gueye’s statistics from the French top flight to the Premier League from last season, using Comparisonator’s Virtual Transfer tool, there are some interesting results. As you might expect, Gueye scores well for defensive duels won per 90 minutes (5.12), a figure that only Watford veteran Juraj Kucka – who has subsequently joined Slovan Bratislava back in his Slovakian homeland after the Hornets’ relegation – could top with 5.62.
Gueye would be ranked fourth for ball recoveries (4.79), behind Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg of Tottenham Hotspur (5.03); Kucka (4.97) and James McArthur of Crystal Palace (4.94) and in the same position for ball recoveries in the opponents’ half (1.62) after Thiago of Liverpool (2.42); Hojbjerg (1.96) and Youri Tielemans of Leicester City (1.65). Keeping possession well, he’d also be fourth for ball losses (3.98), trailing only Leander Dendoncker of Wolverhampton Wanderers – another Everton linked player this summer – (3.28); Curtis Jones of Liverpool (3.48) and Joao Moutinho of Wolverhampton Wanderers (3.92).
Gueye would also make the top 10 in his position for defensive actions (eighth with 17.87) and successful defensive actions (seventh with 11.62), categories that Kucka topped with scores of 21.44 and 13.92 respectively. Perhaps the most illuminating aspect of Gueye’s play from his time at the Parc des Princes though is the improvement in his passing.
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Widely regarded as being something of an Achilles’ heel from his first spell at Everton, it seems that doing the dirty work for the likes of Neymar, Kylian Mbappe and Lionel Messi before picking out one of his superstar team-mates has helped polish this aspect of Gueye’s skill set. His passing accuracy for the three years he spent at Goodison Park was as follows: 2016/17 86.3%; 2017/18 84.7%; 2018/19 84.3%.
However, only Thiago (79.7) made more passes per 90 minutes among Premier League midfielders last season than Gueye’s figure of 67.34. That’s more than Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson (61.64) or Manchester City pair Kevin De Bruyne (58.96) and Bernando Silva (57.97).
He is also finding his man too with again just Thiago (72.78) bettering his number of successful passes (63.44). Such figures represent an impressive completion rate of 94% although it’s to be hoped that if Lampard and Kevin Thelwell do seal a deal, Gueye is able to replicate these kind of figures in the more intense environment of English top-flight matches.
Comparisonator is a football data comparison tool from 271 professional leagues around the world which compares players and clubs by utilising over 100 different parameters. Click here for more details.
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