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2018/19 Idrissa Gueye

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SteStocksDJ said:
Gana should be replaced with a younger version. But not in January. I’m happy if he can’t play more than a 5-10 yard pass. Because I don’t expect him to be playing long balls.

In my eyes his job is to win the ball and play an accurate first pass - to Gomes or sigurdsson preferably - and then they can find the runners.
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That’s fine but Gomes isn’t a Pirlo type midfielder and Sigurdsson might as well sit with me for around 70 minutes of a game
 
Another point. I've lost count of wasted opportunities for a quick counter as Gana has failed to see the quick ball over the top, the opportunity has gone and then he still decides to make the pass which is now too late and passes it straight to the opposition. He's not the only one who does this either to be fair.
 
Zatara said:
If Gana was 25 or younger then it would be fair to say we should keep him as 1st choice DM and then try to work on his game. That way we can compensate and focus on 2 central midfielders ahead of him to compliment his game and cover for his weaknesses.

However, he's going to be 30 in September and if we do have a long term strategy then he should be phased out for a younger better player over the next 2-3 seasons OR if we dont have the funds required to do this we should sell him now and put the money together for the long term player.
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This is where that theory breaks down though. Younger sure we could do that tomorrow. But better is a lot harder. My preference is to make the squad younger too but not by selling the viable or in this case hugely important players to do it. If the money is right, meaning 40 plus million, then it should be considered but only if they can get someone else in to hopefully fill the void. But even then it would be better to sell Schneiderlin and work on a replacement with Gueye being a bench option if that replacement proves to be useful. We don't have enough good players to sell the ones we have even if they're getting on in years a bit.
 
Paulie said:
Another point. I've lost count of wasted opportunities for a quick counter as Gana has failed to see the quick ball over the top, the opportunity has gone and then he still decides to make the pass which is now too late and passes it straight to the opposition. He's not the only one who does this either to be fair.
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Counter point: In games he's played our goal difference is +8. The two he didn't it was -6. And I recognize the obvious counter point to that which is of course we struggled the two games he didn't play they were City and Spurs. Well the other 4 "Big 6" games our goal difference was -4 with him playing. But also we only conceded 5 goals in those as opposed to the 9 in the two he didn't play. Also our attacking outputs against Arsenal, United and the RS were all decent we just didn't take chances.

The evidence shows we are better when Gana is in the side. Now how much of the dropoff is losing his ability vs the lack of ability of those replacing him? That's tougher to say but it's probably safer to find out by getting a different replacement in and having Gana to fall back on still than selling Gana and hoping he can be easily replaced.
 
14 days left in the window.

It will be silly just sell for the sake of it.

Better, younger replacement should be signed before any consideration to sell.

So it will not happen.
 

TheBigIguana said:
Counter point: In games he's played our goal difference is +8. The two he didn't it was -6. And I recognize the obvious counter point to that which is of course we struggled the two games he didn't play they were City and Spurs. Well the other 4 "Big 6" games our goal difference was -4 with him playing. But also we only conceded 5 goals in those as opposed to the 9 in the two he didn't play. Also our attacking outputs against Arsenal, United and the RS were all decent we just didn't take chances.

The evidence shows we are better when Gana is in the side. Now how much of the dropoff is losing his ability vs the lack of ability of those replacing him? That's tougher to say but it's probably safer to find out by getting a different replacement in and having Gana to fall back on still than selling Gana and hoping he can be easily replaced.
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That's not really my point though. I'm not arguing against his defensive qualities, he is really good at that. I don't think it helps when Davies or Schneiderlin are back ups. I just think at his age, our need to balance the books a bit that he can be sacrificed as long as we have a good quality replacement lined up.
 
Paulie said:
That's not really my point though. I'm not arguing against his defensive qualities, he is really good at that. I don't think it helps when Davies or Schneiderlin are back ups. I just think at his age, our need to balance the books a bit that he can be sacrificed as long as we have a good quality replacement lined up.
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My feeling is pretty simply that selling Gueye is going to make us worse at a minimum for the next 6 months but honestly probably next season as well. We probably need to sign a midfielder this summer in addition to hopefully bringing Gomes back. If Gana goes that means we will need to sign one this window too. Next season we will be starting with Gomes, ?, ?, Davies as our midfield options. There's a scenario where that goes brilliantly. There's also one where our midfield looks like it did against Tottenham and City anytime we play someone with technical ability. It becomes a large gamble where the other option could be sell Schneiderlin and replace him with hopefully the long term Gueye replacement but Gana is still here for when he is needed.
 


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