With the addition of Iliman Ndiaye, Sean Dyche will have more depth and the chance to reevaluate Abdoulaye Doucoure’s role.
Iliman Ndiaye’s arrival will provide Sean Dyche an additional midfield option, which might bolster Everton’s team even more.
After arriving from Marseille on Wednesday, Ndiaye officially became the team’s third summer acquisition, with a transaction estimated to be around £15 million.
The acquisition strengthens a team that already consists of Beto, Yussef Chermiti, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, and the returning Neal Maupay. However, it can also provide an answer to an issue that Dyche was having more and more over the course of the previous season.
Since arriving at Goodison Park in late January of last year, Blues manager Dyche has remained true to his favored 4-5-1 style. Because his team is so thinly built, he must rely on a select group of players to keep the team competitive. Abdoulaye Doucoure has been one of those players. His goals at the end of the 2022–2023 season and in the first half of the most recent campaign—none more so than his incredible performance against Bournemouth in the final day survival-clincher in May 2023—were crucial to preserving the club’s top-flight status.
Since Dyche took over and brought him in from the cold following the player’s falling out with former manager Frank Lampard, Doucoure has signed two contract extensions. His worth to Dyche has been demonstrated by the new contracts, which were made evident when his team set a club record by going the entire Premier League season without a victory.
That four-month run started when Doucoure left the game against Burnley, the last one before going winless, due to a hamstring injury. The Mali international’s dynamism was much missed during that trying period as he battled to heal and then developed a second hamstring problem in rapid succession.
Everton needed to solve the issue of Doucoure’s lack of cover, and in signing Ndiaye, they have acquired a natural backup striker who can flourish in the role behind a forward like Calvert-Lewin, whose future is still up in the air as he approaches the last 12 months of his contract. New terms have been presented to him.
Ndiaye’s arrival should benefit the Blues in his preferred position and enable Doucoure to move deeper into central midfield, where he has played for the majority of his career. The 31-year-old, who paid £20 million to join from Watford, will thus challenge Madou Onana, Idrissa Gueye, James Garner, and new recruit Tim Iroegbunam for a middle-of-the-field berth in addition to providing backup for Ndiaye.
Given the uncertainties surrounding Onana’s future—the Belgium international is being pursued by multiple teams throughout Europe—and the exits of André Gomes and Lewis Warrington from the team this summer, Dyche will find that benefit especially helpful.
Read more news on https://sportupdates.co.uk/
Leave a Reply