Dyche risks undermining his own argument regarding Ndiaye

Far from being a season of welcome mid-table mediocrity in which Evertonians could take in Goodison Park in her final campaign before moving to pastures new on the banks of the royal blue Mersey, 2024/25 has been a miserable slog to amass a paltry 10 points.

The Blues sit just three points above the drop zone and there is a nervousness among the fans that if Sean Dyche and his team don’t take full advantage of two relatively favourable home games against Brentford and Wolves in the next 11 days, the Club could find itself plunged back into a relegation scrap by the end of the year given that December features games against each of the current top four teams in the Premier League.

If there has been one bright spot amid the gloom it has been the silky skills and invention of Iliman Ndiaye, the Toffees’ £17m summer signing from Marseille. The Grand Old Lady has played hosts to some of the most gifted stars to ever grace the game but it’s been a long time since Everton supporters had a player capable of getting them off their seats when he has the ball at his feet.

Ndiaye has that wonderful quality but after making an explosive start, the Senegalese’s impact on matches has waned in recent weeks. Part of that is down to the extra attention being paid to him by opposition managers — when Fulham visited Merseyside last month, for example Marco Silva made sure to double- and sometimes triple-up on Ndiaye, suffocating his effectiveness — but a lot of it is down to what is all too often a one-dimensional approach under Dyche, a reliance on long balls and launched diagonals, and Everton’s inability to consistently and effectively move the ball through the lines to open up the play.

As such, Ndiaye, without question Everton’s best forward player, is either routinely isolated on the left flank or pinned to it by opponents and it has led to increasing calls for Dyche to move him inside to a central or No 10 position he occupied so effectively at Sheffield United. (That argument is seemingly strengthened by the belief in France that Ndiaye struggled to make his mark at Marseille because he was being played out of position on the wing.)

Dyche was asked about Ndiaye’s best position before this weekend’s clash with Brentford, first by BBC Merseyside’s Giulia Bould in the open media session at Finch Farm and then by the print journalists, and he insisted that the 24-year-old is not ready for a role that the Gaffer says has changed considerably.

“In the Premier League playing as a No.10 is a very defensive minded role, now. It wasn't 10 years ago; it was almost like, ‘we will play a No 10 and they will just wait for us to do the job’. Speak to all managers now, they will say a No 10 is not just standing there.

“A No 10 is getting into the passing lanes, breaking up the play, working off the bits like when the centre half heads it, being alive, working in transition, driving in the box.

“It is coming out the box, getting between the two centre midfield players and getting the ball, linking the play. There's a lot going on with a modern No 10. I think that's his learning curve. It's not just a case of just throwing him in as a number 10. It is not as easy as that. I wish it was.”

The issue here, though, is that Ndiaye has shown himself to have all of those qualities already and, in many ways, looks far more suited to the role from a defensive standpoint than Dwight McNeil who has very much been thrown in as a No 10 this season, with mixed results — some excellent in terms of chance creation and goals, others not so much in terms of the gaping holes that open up in Dyche’s midfield. (See Alex Iwobi’s goal for Fulham at Goodison Park for reference!)

Ndiaye’s defensive work up and down the left is tireless — Dyche admits that he has a “great attitude” and he “works hard” — and it’s notable that Everton have conceded important goals and dropped vital points late in matches after he has left the field. He leads the team in interceptions (13 to McNeil’s five) and has won the fourth-most tackles (20 to McNeil’s eight), metrics that would seem to indicate he could handle the defensive responsibilities that Dyche ascribes to a No 10 quite handily.

If the Blues were winning games or simply picking up enough points to stay clear of the dogfight at the bottom, this would be a redundant argument. Unfortunately, the reverse is true and there is a strong argument that Iliman Ndiaye should be central to everything the team does going forward. Instead, he is too often a peripheral figure, drifting in and out of games, his ability to beat a man, shimmy past defenders, create openings and score goals frustratingly restricted.

At the same time, Everton aren’t delivering as many crosses as last season with their chief line of supply, McNeil, operating in the more central role. He has still delivered almost double the number of centres than the next team-mate but with Ndiaye averaging just one cross a game from the left flank, it’s no wonder that the team, one so reliant on scoring from set-pieces (many of which come from deflected or blocked crosses), is battling not only to score goals but simply create enough chances to do so.

At the very least, it would serve Dyche well to begin by rotating the two players in and out of the role behind the centre-forward more during matches, if only to keep opposition defences guessing and, perhaps, quell the discontented murmurings from a restless fanbase and the journalists taking those concerns to his press conferences!

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