Abdoulaye Doucoure has emerged as a 'false' Everton hero and could be about to trigger a big dilemma
Without a suitable like-for-like alternative to Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Everton manager Sean Dyche sometimes deployed a ‘false nine’ last season - but what about the ‘false 10’ hero who has now become an integral part of his side?
Abdoulaye Doucoure, who has signed a new contract through to 2025, was out of the squad and had fallen from favour during the last days of Frank Lampard’s tenure – he maintains: “I did not really understand what had happened,” – but has subsequently become one of the Blues’ key players under Dyche.
It’s ironic that having splashed out on a trio of number 10s in the now infamous summer of profligate spending in 2017 and failed to get a proper tune out of any of them, Everton are now knitting together midfield and attack with a player not even schooled in that role.
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Transfermarkt calculates that 315 of Doucoure’s career appearances have come as a central midfielder with only half a dozen as a ‘second striker’ yet all but one of the latter outings have come this season for the Blues. Snapped up from relegated Watford in 2020, he was seemingly billed as the ‘other’ midfield signing in a transfer window in which Carlo Ancelotti also re-acquired a couple of former charges in the shape of James Rodriguez and Allan but while the high profile South American pair both flattered to deceive to varying degrees at Goodison Park, the now 30-year-old is still going strong.
Doucoure netted a couple of Premier League goals for Everton in both of his first two seasons but that output increased to five last term. All of which came after
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