Gueye signed new long-term deal last October

Thanks for the info, Lyndon, I think I'll go back to sleep now.

That said (and I know I'll not be popular for saying this) I still believe that Schneiderlin could be that player with the right confidence level, but I suspect he'll be off in the summer.

Not good enough, I would prefer Mooy of Huddersfield with Pearson of Preston next to him in our engine room, with Lookman & Dowell as our wingers.

We plod on!

Like many have said he has had some awful games but who hasn't, especially when paired with you know who.

I just wish his passing was a bit more accurate and he should have a go at goal more often.

"Paired with"? WTF? Should a player not be judged on his own merit rather than paired with some imaginary boss passer?

If you paired him with Lionel Messi, he'd still be a tackling machine who spends far too much time on his arse.

So why are muppets like you talking about pairs?

BTW; put Messi in a local pub team and he`d still be brilliant – unless Allardyce was manager and he was forced to get behind the ball and help out the back nine.

I reckon we'll get him in the summer mate. ;-)

He's a gnat.

Buzzes around and doesn't give you a moment's rest.

With Gana holding and any of Davies & Rooney, Sigurdsson & Rooney or Sigurdsson &Davies in front of him, we're fine.

There's three different threads about Tom Davies at the moment, He's 19 and he's already being judged on his own merits.

Gana is an experienced pro, we should be expecting him to help others improve their game, not looking for others to improve his.

"Doesn't give you a moment's rest"? Depends on where you play.

There are defenders out there who couldn't pick him out in a police line-up.

I personally think Gana's game is ridiculously limited at his age. Remember Lee Carsley? He could break attacks up and then go forward.

There is a common link between the improvement in Davies's form and Gana's that both Koeman and Allardyce have failed to see but has been spotted by 35,000+ eagle-eyed blues.

Schneiderlin is so lacking in form and effort that he's dragging the whole team down. Without him, the team as a whole performs with more confidence. Ditto with Williams in defence, to a slightly lesser degree.

He's never going to be a creative player so let's not ask him to do that. Press, win the ball, give it off. If we could play to the strengths of each of our 11 we'd be great!

Ideally he would also be great on the ball but most teams in the league are forced to make do with someone more limited. Not sure why we expect our players should be flawless.

I hear you and you're correct!

But he's not that type of player. He's not in a team to press forward and threaten opposing back lines.

He's a tenacious ball winning defensive midfielder who wins the thing and promptly passes to more “dangerous” teammates. He's a beast against opposition threats.

I firmly believe every team needs this guy: Gana, McCarthy, Besic, Carsley, and I wish to God I could think of another team that has a defensive midfielder who is strong in a tackle, a beast in defense, and knows his role of defending and winning the damn ball and distributing it quickly to more “technical” teammates.

Gueye, to me, is that guy. And he seems to have Superman lungs as the amount of ground he covers (to my eyes) is insane – nice perk to have!

I know there's a ton of material in this post to rip me a new ass, but I believe you understand the point I'm trying to make.

Carsley = Gueye
Arteta = Rooney
Osman = Davies
Pienaar = Sigurdsson
Cahill = Walcott

What we need to do is compliment this 5 with a clinical finisher. Niasse is actually more Cahill than Yakubu. Hopefully, one of Tosun, Calvert-Lewin, or Onyekuru become the new Yakubu / Lukaku. Given time to settle down, our midfield 5 could turn out to be as competitive as the one we had under Moyes.

Regardless. It is good business.

What else does he offer? Absolutely nothing. I personally think he is one of many weak links in our tepid midfield and think a midfield pairing of Rooney and Davies is our best in creating and breaking up opponents attacks.

Certainly not people like him who run around, have the occasional good tackle, only to lose possession straight away but pull the wool over fans eyes how as to good he is... would he be good enough for any of the top 6? Not in my book he isn't. Average at very best!

His passing is 85% accurate, according to Andy Williams (above), but that could mean that he is tapping little 3-yarders here and there.

I rarely see him put a defence-splitting ball through. I like him, admire his engine and his attitude, and think he can play an important role for us, but he is a very limited player and it shows that, despite all of the money in the Premier League, there are still some very ordinary grafters making megabucks.

Play 11 Ozil's or Fabregas and watch them stink the house out each week.

Fernandinho for City, Kante for Chelsea, Xhaka for Arsenal, Dier for Spurs etc etc. They all make other players in the team look good.

Bracewell and Reid made Steven and Sheedy look good. All great teams have players like that. Dunga for Brazil was an absolute dog but would win the ball and pass it to someone better and off he strolled with the World Cup.

I am please he has signed as he does the defensive work for others like Rooney or Davies.

I would be more upset if he didn't sign and we were left with Besic and Schneiderlin.

There are more urgent matters that need addressing in our team. Formation, left-back, left-mid, striker, Director of Football, and manager.

The remarks about his pairing with Schneiderlin ring true; it has never worked. The statement that he has been marking Schneiderlin for a year also has a whiff of truth about it.

He's never going to be a neon lights and billboard midfielder. He's a cog in the engine room.

It's no coincidence that he improves when Schneiderlin is dropped. Koeman and Sam have been making incomprehensible midfield decisions for a year, continually selecting defensive and static formations.

I am hoping there is light at the end of the tunnel on that point.

Gana has not improved that side of his game and I don't think Schneiderlin ever goes near the opponent's box, but surely the player and the manager should be looking to improve that side of Gana's game.

I do agree about going to ground when tackling; I remember Bob Paisley saying if you go to ground and don't get the ball, you have taken yourself out of the game. He always said stay on your feet; if you don't get the ball first time, then you can recover and try again – go to ground and you can't.

Pickford, Coleman, Davies, Gueye, Sigurdsson, Walcott, and Calvert-Lewin are the only first team players I really want to stay at the club, maybe Holgate, maybe Tosun (give him a chance first).

Vlasic, Lookman, Dowell, Baningime from the fringes & loanees.

A midfield of Gueye, Davies and another, more creative central midfielder has potential (under a decent manager).

I guess we had bigger fish to fry at that time.

He is second highest rated for tackles per game in the Premier League. He's pretty high up there for interceptions too. So he's pretty damn good at his job which is to win us the ball back in the middle of the park.

Yes, his passing is not top notch and his discipline does sometimes leave gaps but if he didn't have these flaws then he'd be playing for a top 4 team rather than us.

I think he is comfortably the best defensive midfielder we have currently and I'm glad to hear he's sticking around.

The player himself is part of a midfield which is deficient individually but greater than the sum of its parts. As soon as that balance is broken he becomes exposed. No Davies and Rooney – he is just a dude running round the pitch. The same goes for the other two to be fair.

His role is to break up play and get us into transition. He can do the first part adequately enough but the rest of his is too poor to affect the game. As a Premier League player you must have more strings to your bow than just interceptions & tackles.

If Everton had their shit together he'd be a squad member; he is already at his maximum as a player, without a marked ability to pass and chip in 5 goals per year an upgrade is required.

The very definition of average, made to look better than that by the defensive shithousery we've played under Koeman & Allardyce.

If we genuinely played a more attacking style higher up the pitch, his weaknesses would be more overtly exposed.

Similar in style to Kante of Chelski.

Isn't that the same for all midfielders / footballers. When you become a footballer, you end up being a forward, midfielder or defender. If you are a defensive midfielder, like Gueye, then running about putting tackles in is his job. It only becomes difficult when the likes of Schneiderlin or his other midfielders don't do their tackling part.

He is a cracking defensive midfielder who should be told to not cross the halfway line. Just break up the play and give it to players further forward to create things and drop into the fullback or central defensive role when those guys go forward. Simple.

That being said, as someone else has said, I would rather have a team with him than without him, especially over the next few years.

For all the talk of Arsenal etc, I think that he is probably at his level with us. Good in the tackle, a real worker, but lacking in ability beyond this to really be a top 6 player.

Gana is there to patrol, and protect the space, in front of the centre halfs (someone must have access to stats on where goals are scored from – I don't but I'd place good money on a very high percentage are scored within the width of the 18-yard 'D' – exactly where the centre-halves should be and the defensive mid should patrol). When he isn't preoccupied with having to cover the all too evident shortcomings of other centre-midfielders, he does that job admirably. Very happy to have him.

Indeed most teams worth their salt have (just) one player performing the same role – Fernandinho, Matic, Dier, Kante, Casemiro, Martinez, Busquets. None of these are renowned for their creative abilities. Not saying that Gana is at that level (but in my opinion he is very good), but demonstrating that a defensive shield is deemed essential in better teams than us.

I wouldn't 'pair' him with anyone, instead I'd let him patrol on his own, with no licence to venture forward which should be the preserve of other creative types.

He has been MotM on many occasions and when the team were playing well last season he was the standout performer.

He has suffered from the club malaise this season but is still one of the few box-to-box midfielders we have and what an engine he has.

Comparisons with Kante are valid and I'm sure if he replaced Kante in the Chelsea team you would hardly know the difference.

The quality of our midfield is poor by comparison with the top teams but Gana is a class above.

Gueye is a plodder and a spoiler, that's it. We won't ever progress with players like this. He's just not dynamic enough with no match-winning qualities whatsoever. A poor waste of resources.

Surrounded with the right players (which we are only now starting to do), he's one of the most important players in our team, particularly with McCarthy injured. He's the one who tackles everything that moves and is, in that sense, vital.

"Old-ish"? He's 28!

If he could add to his abilities in other areas, he would most certainly be cherished by one of the big clubs. The beauty of football is the piecing together of 11 players with various levels of skills and attributes and getting them to gel together in a plan to play winning football. Appreciate what he has. He sometimes ships terrible unwarranted abuse on the LIve Forum for missing a chance or misplacing a pass.

One of the most important players in our XI.

Is Gueye as good as Can, Henderson, Fernandinho, Bakayoko, Matic, Drinkwater etc. Yes, I think he could keep those out of a side as a defensive midfielder, in my opinion.

Good, when he's played the defensive role by himself, bad, when he's played with Schneiderlin, and his head has gone on more than a couple of occasions, which has resulted in him not even being able to pass the ball, and indifferent, because he's been playing in a very average team this season, with nowhere near enough creativity, to make the role that he plays look effective, once he's won the ball?

Not a Tony Kay / Peter Reid but would be a great foil, as was Stevens, to the creative players – when we play some!

That tells you we are not playing the right style of football when players of ilk of Rooney, Sigurdsson et al are not influencing games.

Watch Man City, there is always another player close to either offer an outlet or mop up a tackle. It is no coincidence that he is far more effective without that No 2 playing beside him. Only Kante came close to him last year and this year he is second best tackler whilst playing fewer games.

Yes, he could do some things better but he is incredibly good at what he is supposed to do. If the rest of the team were as effective at doing what they are supposed to do, then we wouldn't have had the crap season that we have.

I agree that we have set up too defensively since Allardyce came to Everton, but I would honestly say that 50% of me is glad about that.

Without wanting to get into arguments with anyone about the West Ham game, I personally thought he had come into a train-wreck of a football team, and I'm sure we had conceded the most goals in the division at this time?

Liverpool in the league was awful, but to play any other way at the time might have led to a lot more embarrassment, so I begrudgingly accepted it, but probably more because of Klopp's antics, I suppose.

West Brom, and Bournemouth, hurt most I think, with the phrase a Leopard never changes its spots, springing into many minds, but I accepted it myself personally because I think you have to keep repeating things, if you want to really instill them into your team?

He felt the back-lash, and I thought we were unlucky at Anfield in the cup, then Spurs outclassed us, once the defenders never got really the protection they needed against a really good team.

Lucky to get a point against West Brom at Goodison, but much better against Leicester, until we gave away a penalty, then absolutely disgusting at Arsenal, but much better against Palace.

People hate Allardyce, I'm not sure many want him to stay, but only now will I really start to judge him, and I honestly think we are now going to start to improve.

If we do I still don't think it's going to make much difference with regards the manager, because it seems personal (the hatred) with too many of our crowd, even though it was Koeman and Walsh who have wasted all the money.

My own view is that Allardyce will make Everton very, very competitive given time, but I'm not sure how much everyone will enjoy it though, because I'm not sure it will be pretty?

Positional play, passing ability, heading (remember heading the ball? Midfielders should be half decent at this!), organising (not sure who does that nowadays – communication) scoring the odd goal perhaps.

Doesn't influence the game enough for me and doesn't have the ability to drag the team up by the bootstraps if his ‘partner' is having a shocker. Sometimes you have to do this and I don't believe he can. Does he warrant a place in the team at the minute, probably, but it's a bad team so...