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Idrissa Gueye

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DRAGONZ_RULE said:
Hi All,

This is my first post on this forum, even though I have been around for a while. I am actually from Sydney, Australia and I support Leeds (thanks to the Harry Kewell / Mark Viduka days!), but have always had a soft spot for Everton due to Tim Cahill's time at your club. In fact you'll see he is featured in my profile picture, scoring one of the best goals in World Cup history against Netherlands in 2014!

As an avid fantasy football player (I don't play FPL or any of the mainstream ones, I play a private comp with a group of mates which is insane in its level of detail for points accumulation etc), I kept a really close eye on Aston Villa last season, even though they were garbage, because I had a couple of their players in my squad. I reckon I probably watched 15-20 of their matches through the season, and almost every single game Gana was either their best player or 2nd best (behind Ayew).

A lot of comments in the above posts seem to be based on an assumption that purely because he played in the centre of the park for a horrible Villa team, he mustn't be much chop at all .. but I promise you, after watching them so much last season, you could have put Claude Makelele and Toni Kroos in the centre of Villa's midfield last season and they still would have been relegated.

Villa didn't lose games because of Gana, they lost games in spite of him. The defending from the back 4 and from wide was abhorrent. Ashley Westwood, Carlos Sanchez, Jordan Veretout etc may as well have been sitting in the stand, such was their ineptitude in defence (and most of the time with the ball too). Up front, apart from Ayew who was out of form early in the season, good through the middle and then injured + suspended late on, they had absolutely nothing - they were giving games to Agbonlahor, Gestede and Kozak! Dudes who had scored a combined total of 4 goals in the previous 6 EPL seasons or something crazy like that (of course Gestede came from Blackburn in the Championship, so he had never played EPL before that).

Gana's passing isn't the best, but in the games I've watched of Everton neither is McCarthy's, Cleverley's or Besic's. Gareth Barry is probably your best passer in midfield, but he's 35 years old now and on his way out. At the same time, when Gana had to play a pass to guys like Westwood, Gestede, Agbonlahor or Bacuna - guys who either don't know how to make a run or are too slow/immobile to do so - you often found him playing a pass seemingly astray because his teammates had no idea what to do. I would actually say his passing is more than serviceable for a guy who is not asked to be the creator - you don't need him to thread balls like Ozil, De Bruyne or Fabregas ... you need him to recycle possession efficiently and cleanly.

His worst attacking attribute is actually his shooting - he tends to lose composure around the box and lets fly with a wild shot that goes 5m over the crossbar. Again, I would argue a lot of this came down to frustration at the hopelessness of Villa's situation and the absolute lack of class up the pitch.

Defensively, though, he is an absolute machine. Tackles, interceptions, aerial duels (so good for his height), blocked shots, midfield press .. I genuinely think he does a great job with that aspect of his game. Given Everton don't really have anyone other than Besic capable of defending in the middle of the park (a guy who is lucky to string 3 games together before another injury hits), signing someone like Gana just makes sense to me.

As Koeman showed at Southampton, he loves to build his midfield around a guy who he thinks can scrap in the middle and win the ball back. Wanyama was his man at Saints (again a guy whose passing and shooting wasn't great but his defensive work was top shelf - apart from the red cards!) ... perhaps he sees Gana as the man to do that for him at Everton.

Anyway, sorry for the long post ... just thought I'd say hello and chuck my 2 cents into this discussion!
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tl;dr lad

Nah jk a good post, thanks mate x
 
2 things stand out in this thread:

1. We are that desperate for signings people are happy for anyone.

2. We are trying to put a brave face on this signing like our fans did with Kone (but he scored 12 goals last season) and Robles (he was ahead of de gea at atletico once upon a time).

Obviously you have to give players a chance but I don't understand this giving 100% blind faith in Walsh, Sir Alex thought Cleverly and Anderson were good players, Moyes Koldrup, Martinez Alcatraz, Mcgeady etc. I personally am gutted if we don't bring in atleast one of Witsel or Cavarlho to compliment him.
 

&.2 is nothing, worth a punt, good stats like. Never seen him play though, unless he played against us, in which case I can't remember.
 
PhilM said:
The point is that people automatically make assumptions based on where a player is coming from; in that degree it's pretty much the same.

Anyway, Cleverely played a year at Villa before us (when they were poor but not that awful) and we still signed him so we're even more the fool.
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The funny thing was the Villa fans were gutted when Cleverly left, because he had actually become one of their best players, after starting crap for them, and getting a bit of a slating off the Villa fans.
 
The Rhino said:
2 things stand out in this thread:

1. We are that desperate for signings people are happy for anyone.

2. We are trying to put a brave face on this signing like our fans did with Kone (but he scored 12 goals last season) and Robles (he was ahead of de gea at atletico once upon a time).

Obviously you have to give players a chance but I don't understand this giving 100% blind faith in Walsh, Sir Alex thought Cleverly and Anderson were good players, Moyes Koldrup, Martinez Alcatraz, Mcgeady etc. I personally am gutted if we don't bring in atleast one of Witsel or Cavarlho to compliment him.
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Regarding 1) - people are desperate for signings, but not happy for anyone. If anything what this thread tells you is that unless it's another Messi/CR7/Besic - we shouldn't sign him, as he's not already a world beater.

Reality of the situation - we finished bottom half 2 years in a row, I'd also like us to sign Witsel, Mata and Carvalho, but, unless they come to us for money, we have no chance.

Let's see how this pans out before we do the worst and jump to the conclusion he's as bad as Kone?
 
The new breed of poster summed up here...

Including the like.

image.webp
 
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LouReedwalkonthewildside said:
The funny thing was the Villa fans were gutted when Cleverly left, because he had actually become one of their best players, after starting crap for them, and getting a bit of a slating off the Villa fans.
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If I'm totally honest, I don't actually think Cleverely is as poor of a player as some make out, and could potentially be a useful player for us.

Simply, the opportunity to use his time at Manure (also a league winner) as a comparison of expectations was too easy to ignore.

It is easy forget how ineffective Martinez's tactics often were combined with how he regularly played players out of their natural position.

I'm not saying Cleverely is a world beater or in fact he should ultimately stay and have a position, rather for me the judgement is still out.

This season will be quite telling for a few of our current players as we will see if they were unhinged by Martinez or simply aren't good enough.
 

DualityNSNO said:
Regarding 1) - people are desperate for signings, but not happy for anyone. If anything what this thread tells you is that unless it's another Messi/CR7/Besic - we shouldn't sign him, as he's not already a world beater.

Reality of the situation - we finished bottom half 2 years in a row, I'd also like us to sign Witsel, Mata and Carvalho, but, unless they come to us for money, we have no chance.

Let's see how this pans out before we do the worst and jump to the conclusion he's as bad as Kone?
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I agree but I think it's completely stupid to ignore the opinions of Villa fans and brushing them off, I seem to remember us blues doing similar on social media to Wigans views on Martinez, I remember some Sunderland fans laughing off our criticisms of Rodwell as being bitter he left for city etc.

I may be old fashioned but I'm going to take a hell of a lot of notice of the opinions of a managers/players former clubs fans who have watched him a lot more than us going off some stats.
 
The Rhino said:
I agree but I think it's completely stupid to ignore the opinions of Villa fans and brushing them off, I seem to remember us blues doing similar on social media to Wigans views on Martinez, I remember some Sunderland fans laughing off our criticisms of Rodwell as being bitter he left for city etc.

I may be old fashioned but I'm going to take a hell of a lot of notice of the opinions of a managers/players former clubs fans who have watched him a lot more than us going off some stats.
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Those are a select few negative opinions on him, whilst there are also positive out there. Likewise if you asked us about one of our players there'd be differing opinions.
 
The Rhino said:
I agree but I think it's completely stupid to ignore the opinions of Villa fans and brushing them off, I seem to remember us blues doing similar on social media to Wigans views on Martinez, I remember some Sunderland fans laughing off our criticisms of Rodwell as being bitter he left for city etc.

I may be old fashioned but I'm going to take a hell of a lot of notice of the opinions of a managers/players former clubs fans who have watched him a lot more than us going off some stats.
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I agree in general, but have you seen the state of some of those Villa fans?

Plus Sland fans knew exactly how injury prone Rodwell was tbh. And I, personally obviously, am not trusting anyone other than Walsh and Koeman with the signings - if they think they're good enough, I'm willing to give the player(s) a chance.
 
DualityNSNO said:
I agree in general, but have you seen the state of some of those Villa fans?

Plus Sland fans knew exactly how injury prone Rodwell was tbh. And I, personally obviously, am not trusting anyone other than Walsh and Koeman with the signings - if they think they're good enough, I'm willing to give the player(s) a chance.
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My opinion of him is one that I'm going to give him a chance if he signs but I don't think he'll do much. I would rather a more established player as it where coming in like a Witsel or Cavarlho or if not McCarthy given a run in the side under Koeman.
 

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