Sean Dyche believes Amadou Onana can develop into a goalscoring midfielder for Everton and has challenged him to channel a Premier League-winning captain of yesteryear.
Onana, who was Everton’s biggest signing of last summer, joining for £33.5million from Lille, is the only one of the club’s central midfielders to find the net so far this season, heading in his solitary strike in the 2-1 defeat to Southampton last month in what proved to be previous manager Frank Lampard’s final home game in charge.
The Belgium international only scored once during his year in France and got two goals for first club Hamburg in the second tier in Germany but the Blues boss believes the player is still young enough to enhance key aspects of his game in attack.
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Dyche said: “I don’t want to play him further forward because it’s more about his development as a player. I think it’s about the more things you can add to your performance, especially when you’re young.
“Gana (Idrissa Gueye) is a player who is what he is now, he’s 33. He’s a very good player by the way, he does the deep role well, he breaks the passing lanes well, we all know that.
“When you’re young, you can adapt your game and we want Ama to be able to adapt and look at his role in midfield. I think it’s more of a European thing but they’re very method bound and sometimes from a very young age they say ‘you’re that player.’
“But when I was growing up, midfielders were all-rounders, they could do a bit of everything. I’m already speaking to him and showing him clips of games, saying ‘this is what you can add into your game.’”
Dyche believes Onana can become more like former Manchester United and England captain Bryan Robson. Although Robson was in the autumn years of his career when he skippered the Reds Devils to the first-ever Premier League title in 1992/93 – over eight years before Onana was born – he netted 100 goals in 465 games for the club as well as scoring 26 times in 90 appearances for his country.
He said: “I think with his physicality, driving into the box is a real good weapon. He’s a powerful boy, he will head it and he’s got an eye for it but then you’ve got to arrive in the box more.
“You’ve got to educate him on the runs into the box, his physical needs and capabilities, work on that to give him the chance to do that just on the physical nature. Demanding that you get in the box but the game of course works both ways.
“Bryan Robson had an amazing engine, because he’d just keep getting in the box and he’d still run back, he’d still defend, he’d still do his midfield work but he could drive in the box. I’m a bit old now, looking at that, but I can see that in Ama to add to what he already is.”
As the lowest scorers in the top six divisions of English football this term – and currently averaging fewer goals per game than the Huddersfield Town side that got 28 in 2017/18 to become the least-prolific team in 30 seasons of the Premier League to stay up – Everton are in desperate need for players to chip in with scoring in all areas of the pitch. Asked if he thinks Onana can become a goalscoring midfielder, Dyche said: “I certainly want him to be. I think that’s something that all midfielders can add to their game because why wouldn’t you?
“As a young player in the Premier League, you want that adaptation. With his physical prowess, I think arriving in the box as a midfield player can be a weapon.
“You don’t see it as much now, it’s a funny thing really, it’s not as clearly relevant as you used to see it but I think there’s still a place for that if you can time your runs as he did on Saturday (against Aston Villa) with a great header. That’s what I want to add to his game and I’ve shown him some clips already about the other chances he had on Saturday when he could have done that, especially with the form that Dwight (McNeil) was in, whipping crosses in.
“I told him ‘you’ve got to see the picture early and drive into the box.’ But he is 21, he is learning and adapting to what the Premier League offers, what we’re offering, trying to play well and trying to run hard and all these other things, so there’s a lot to take in.”
As highlighted in an exclusive interview in the ECHO last week, Dyche arranged for Onana to receive some tips from compatriot Steven Defour who played for the Everton manager at Burnley and is now head coach of his home city club Mechelen. The Blues boss said: “He was an older player who has been through that process, understanding the totality of the Premier League. Steven was a very good footballer, technically him and Tripps (Kieran Trippier) are the best two players I worked with.
“Even Steven had to adapt. I told him when I signed him, he could play until he was 57 in the Belgian League, I went over and watched him, he was doing 10km as a sitting midfielder.
“I said ‘you can do that all your life but in the Premier League, you aren’t going to do that’ and he had to adapt to that. He was explaining that to Ama, saying: ‘Look, trust in what they’re telling you because they’ve been in it a long time.’
“At first, Steven found it challenging but he was trying to fast-track Ama, telling him: ‘They were saying I can’t do this and I can’t do that but then I realised why they were telling me.’
“The game will teach you and that’s what I said to Ama, I’m not trying to patronise him or tell him to suck eggs. I told him: ‘The game has taught me this, these are the things you will have to be able to do to be a top player.’”
Dyche added: “The idea was to just reinforce it with someone who has been on the journey with me and my staff, which was Steven Defour. Because he’s now managing, he’s very honest about it.
“He told Ama that he came in resistant, thinking why are you telling me this but once the penny dropped, he realised, yes, absolutely. Steven was playing fantastic, when we came to Everton and won 1-0, he was running the show that day.
“Unfortunately, shortly afterwards he did his knee and never really got back properly, you know what I mean. It was a real shame because he was super-fit and had started to get what the Premier League was about.”
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