A Thread on why I think Doucoure will be transformative for Everton:

1. He is Premier League ready. This is a big plus in terms of integrating into the squad from the off. Even the best players in the world take some time to adapt to our leagues intensity

2. He is in his prime years and can perform at a high level from the off with confidence.

3. Both Marcel and Carlo want him. Both have a huge knowledge of players so this for me is a huge positive.

4. We need a Box2Box Midfielder, who can take the ball of the centre backs and start attacks, or arrive late into the box to get on the end of them, or chase back and win a crucial tackle when we are looking to overrun. All the top teams have one of (KDB, Keira, Pogba, Kante)

5. He has 19 goals and 11 assists from from 129 PL games. That’s a goal scoring contribution of 1 in 4.5 games. If you look at Gomes/Davies/Iwobi they are much worse.

6. In those 129 games he has a 58% tackles win ratio, with over 1000 recoveries and 162 clearances. He won 127 50/50’ and made over 568 successful duels won. That’s decent defensive stats in a team as weak as Watford.

7. The last time we had a genuine Box2Box midfielder in his prime was 2013 James McCarthy and with a weaker squad we finished 5th and should have qualified for CL as we had it in our own hands.

8. He averages 52 passes a match, and has created 15 big chances (that haven’t been taken) so its clear he is a very productive player.

9. Watford Fans are desperate for him to stay. That’s always a good sign of a player. They were the same with Richarlison and 26 goals in 2 seasons later we now know why.

10. He scores 6.83 on WhoScored as a Central Midfielder for his performances over last 4yrs in PL.
In comparison N’Golo Kante scores 6.96 (playing for Top 4 club and seen as one of the best in the world) and our own André Gomes scores 6.46
So he is an upgrade on what we have now

11. He speaks French, Spanish and English so will be a good member to have around a multi-lingual team.

12. His xG for build up play is inside the Top 10 in the PL over the last 3 seasons. To put that in perspective, none of our other midfielders are inside the Top 20!

13. He is ideally suited to playing with someone like Allan. He can go forward and advance knowing that behind him is someone who will pick up the pieces if the attack fails and has great positional sense and aggression to win the ball back. It will be a top combination.

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