The UNBELIEVABLE Rise And FALL Of Southampton.
Everton midfielder Abdoulaye Doucoure only has six months left on his contract and has found himself back in the first team picture since Sean Dyche’s arrival.
The new Everton boss prefers working alongside Idrissa Gana Gueye and Amadou Onana, and Everton have won two of their last three games.
The last time Everton won two consecutive Premier League games, Rafa Benitez was in charge back in August/September 2021.
Frozen out of the team by former Everton manager Frank Lampard, it is believed that Doucoure was wanted by the man that brought him to Goodison Park in Marco Silva.
During the January transfer window, Everton were tempted to cash in on one of the club’s highest earners, but no offer was submitted.
Since then, Frank Lampard was given the sack less than 12 months after he took over the job and one look at Doucoure’s liked Tweets you would see he wishes he had gone sooner.
Frank Lampard’s replacement Sean Dyche however, put Doucoure straight into his starting XI for his first game against league leaders Arsenal and was pivotal in Everton’s 1-0 win.
With his reported £120k-a-week salary, Everton should look to move on the 29-year old midfielder as he earns way too much for how little he has offered in his time at the club.
Time for Everton to let Doucoure leave for pastures new
He is a very good squad player, but the fact he is one of the club’s highest earner speaks volumes and if Everton release him at the end of his contract they will save over £6M a year on just Doucoure.
With others like Yerry Mina, Tom Davies and Andros Townsend all out of contract this summer, Everton can finally get rid of players on big wages and start to reinvest on players that Sean Dyche and Kevin Thelwell believe suit playing for Everton.
In his last three games, he has had two glorious opportunities to find the back of the net but failed to even hit the target with both.
Against Arsenal at 0-0 he had a free header in the six-yard box that he headed well wide of the target and on the weekend he had the chance to kill the game.
Ellis Simms played Doucoure through on goal and with just Illan Meslier to beat, Doucoure tried to shift the ball onto his favoured right foot in doing so allowed the Leeds defence to get back and clear the ball.
It is situations like those that can keep us up this season or send us down and we cannot afford to miss chances like that. Fortunately for Doucoure, we won both games 1-0 but on any other day those misses could come back to haunt us and in football, we rarely get that second chance.
Seamus Coleman’s goal saved Doucoure’s blushes on Saturday but even after the miss, Sean Dyche told the clubs official site that he was happy with Doucoure’s game.
“There were a couple of outstanding performances — I thought Gana and Doucs were absolutely outstanding.”
Everton have the option for another year with Doucoure but as things stand, I would be letting him leave when his contract ends.
