The big six in England – Manchester City, Liverpool, Tottenham, Chelsea, Manchester United, and Arsenal – dominate the Premier League in terms of on-field success, revenue, and news coverage.
But over the past few years, the general talent level in the league has increased immensely after the massive amounts of money teams started to receive from the league’s TV deal in 2015. More so than ever before, there are talented players in every part of the country, and in this series of articles, I plan to take a deeper look at some of those overlooked gems.
All stats mentioned are per 90-minute statistics from whoscored.com.
First off is Idrissa Gueye from Everton. Whether it was Gennaro Gattuso with Italy in the World Cup in 2006, Sergio Busquets in Pep’s scintillating Barcelona teams, or, more recently, N’Golo Kanté – with Leicester in 2016, Chelsea in 2017, and France in 2018 – holding midfielders have come to the forefront in recent years as crucial members to a team’s success. Even this year in the Premier League, leading teams like Manchester City and Chelsea revolve around their two holding midfielders, Fernandinho and Jorginho.
While Gueye doesn’t have the same passing ability and range as those two, he fits more in the N’Golo Kanté ball-winning mould as a holding player, and controls the game excellently for Everton, allowing Gylfi Sigurdsson and their more attacking players to thrive and focus on offense.
Gueye’s defensive stats speak for themselves. Compared to other central and holding midfielders, his 4.4 tackles are first in the league by some ways over Joao Moutinho’s 3.7 in second place, while his 2.5 interceptions put him in the top five positionally as well. The Everton man’s 6.9 combined defensive contributions (tackles + interceptions) are also top amongst all midfielders, over twice the positional average of 3.4; and he passes the eye test as well. In just the last 30 minutes of Everton’s match mid-week loss to Manchester City, Gueye made pinpoint accurate challenges on Sergio Aguero, David Silva, and Raheem Sterling on the edge of his own defensive box. That 2-0 defeat could have been a lot worse if he wasn’t there to mop up in front of his back line.
It’s hard not to think about N’Golo Kanté when watching Gueye play. His ferocity and desire to win the ball are very similar to the diminutive Frenchman. And as Kanté has moved further forward to accommodate for Jorginho’s arrival in the Chelsea squad, Gueye has taken over as the premier ball-winner in the league. Just for reference, Kanté averaged 6 defensive contributions during the World Cup this summer, and 5.6 during Chelsea’s title-winning campaign in 2017 (he also had 9.8(!) in Leicester’s fairytale triumph in 2016).
Even at 29, Gueye could be of use to a far bigger side than Everton, which was reflected in PSG’s interest last month.
The Senegal man certainly isn’t perfect, as evidenced by his mistimed challenge that led to Aymeric Laporte’s opener in the game this week, and he is often overeager to win the ball back for his team. That blemish notwithstanding Gueye, at 29, is in the middle of his prime now, and there are certainly big teams in Europe, even in England, who could use his experience and talent in the holding midfield role.
After the sale of Moussa Dembélé to China and no signings over the past two windows, Spurs could use some reinforcements while in Manchester, both Nemanja Matic and Fernandinho are showing signs of age and could use a lighter workload. Earlier in the January window, PSG was linked with a move for the Everton midfielder, and he would fit perfectly in their set up for the remaining couple years of his prime, as he would allow Marco Verratti to thrive in a more creative role.
Gueye does the dirty work for his team, winning the ball back and working hard in the center of the park. His work often goes unnoticed, but he is the kind of grafter that every good team needs, and he has been crucial to Everton’s performances so far this season.