Gana Get Replaced?

[Bluedylan]

Find it a bit odd that when we struggle to break a side down people want gueye replaced. He’s the 1 defensive minded player in our midfield and he’s doing a great job defensively. Surely we should be asking for a lot more from Walcott, Bernard and sigurdsson and expecting a quality striker signed. Gueye really isn’t the problem. He’s probably been 1 of our 3 or 4 best players this season

I don't think it's meant as particularly a criticism of Gana. He does what he does really well, as we all know. It's just whether you can afford to have a player who purely does defensive duties, and generally fucks up any attacking play, against defensive teams.

[Bluedylan]

This is not off the back of last night - this is a general observation from all of his games (that I've seen).

I feel like I'm always cheering one minute when he's won the ball back and cursing him the next for when he's given possession away cheaply and allowed the opposition to bypass him and the rest of our midfield.

It'd be interesting to see if this is something of a confirmation bias I have every time it happens - or if he is genuinely giving the ball away a lot.

You'd have to separate his 5 yard passes back to the centre halves, when he's unmarked and could turn with the ball, and anytime he tries to pass the ball forwards or through tight spaces.

[Bluedylan]

It’s all gone a bit weird

Our fanbase is weird

[Bluedylan]

If we get offered £30m or above for him, I'd sell him. You're never going to get offered more than that for him, so he's peak value, and all players are replaceable. 

[Bluedylan]

That's fair in terms of valuation - probably will never get more for him. However, we don't have to sell to buy anymore. I think we should only sell him if we can get a player that better fits Silva's system and improve our squad as a whole. If we can't do that then we should hold onto him until we find that player.

Yes fair point. I agree that we don't need to sell to buy. Having said that, we do have a responsibility to be a little more financially prudent than the last few seasons, if we're going to be sustainable and successful. Part of that is selling people aged 29, when you get large, profitable bids. He's a very good player with notable limitations. He's replaceable and we need to rebuild the midfield. This season is very much a transition, flux season, so it might be the right time to sell and maximise value.

I'd also put the feelers out to see if anyone wants to pay £25-30m for Gylfi, and just start the entire midfield from scratch.

[Bluedylan]

He's a really good player, and his output this season has been decent, but maybe it just doesn't work and we should accept that.

I think it was fair for Silva to try to make our midfield work with the options we have, because we do have good players and it was reasonable to try it, but the balance never seems to really work properly.

So maybe it's better looking at his team like a construction job, and maybe the best move he can make it just to rip the midfield out altogether and build it as you want it, rather than trying to refine an imperfect set-up.

[Bluedylan]

The funny thing with Rom is that a lot of people spent his entire Everton career moaning at him/about him for not being better, rather than just accepting his limitations and being glad we had him, for his strengths.

Eventually we need to start to take a look at ourselves as a club and a fanbase, and wonder if there might be summat wrong with us. We slag our best players off for not being better than they are, we get on young players' backs, we get on managers backs very quickly.

I realise people might not like those sorts of comments, and the fact that I don't live in the city anymore, or go to the game every week undermines the points I'm making for some people. But still, taking my personal situation out of it, is it true?