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This article is part of Football FanCast’s In Numbers series, which takes a statistical look at performances, season-long form and reported transfer targets…
According to Sky Sports, Everton are eyeing up a move for Southampton midfielder Mario Lemina and view the 25-year-old as a potential replacement for Idrissa Gueye.
The Senegal international left for Paris Saint-Germain in a £30m deal on Tuesday afternoon, leaving the Toffees without their 2018/19 Players’ Player of the Season and a man who is quite frankly a key cog in Marco Silva’s machine.
With 10 days left of the window, Marcel Brands has a huge job on his hands to replace the 29-year-old, whilst he also has more work to do in signing another right-back, a striker, a winger as well as continuing the pursuit of Kurt Zouma.
The former PSV director has seemingly begun the transfer overhaul by identifying Lemina as Gueye’s replacement, and whilst that isn’t necessarily a terrible shout, there is one aspect of the Gabonese man’s game that is significantly inferior.
As you can see, the pair aren’t too different from a defensive viewpoint.
Gueye averages 0.2 more interceptions per game than Lemina’s two, whilst there are only slender margins in their numbers for clearances per game, pass success rate and fouls committed per game.
However, Gueye records a substantially higher amount of tackles per game than the former Juventus man, who the Saints have requested £18m for from any interested parties according to The Evening Standard.
Check out some amazing tekkers in the video below…
Describing the superior amount of tackles as ‘substantially higher’ is probably doing Gueye a disservice – to make a whole two tackles more than Lemina’s already respectable average of 2.3 shows just how effective a ball winner the PSG new boy really is.
Silva’s high-pressing system began to blossom towards the end of the season with memorable wins over Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea, and Gueye’s intensity and ability to win possession back was a huge part of that.
Lemina may be able to hold his own in the Toffees’ midfield to an extent, but nobody at Goodison Park should expect him to be carbon copy of the former Lille man.
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