Everton enter Lemar chase

Everton have supposedly entered the race for Athletico Madrid midfielder Thomas Lemar, who is apparently available and is surplus to requirements in Diego Simone’s team.

Lemar is a 24-year-old French international who has fallen down the pecking order at the Wanda Metropolitano Stadium. So would he be the right man for Everton?

There are so many attacking midfielders out there, playing in the various European leagues that you could spend an entire day just looking over them all!

We’ve tried to analyse many of these players and no doubt the Blues brains trust have been spending a lot of time running the rule over them.

So it’s very difficult to say for sure whether this player or that player would be the right fit for Everton and the Premier League.

In the end it is always going to be to some extent impossible to know and the Toffees will have to take a chance if they sign one of these players from abroad. However, Lemar seems to tick all the boxes, well almost all of them.

Given his situation at Athletico Madrid, he would also probably be available for a reasonable, affordable fee, important in this new financial situation.

He is young, but also experienced, which fits with the trend in the Blues transfer dealings. He is also a versatile player able to slot in a wide position, both on the left and right as well as play centrally or off the striker as a number 10-type.

According to the statistics on Whoscored.com, his best position appears to be when he is operating centrally or off the striker.

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He’s also left-footed, a fact that would make him able to provide that right-sided player who can naturally cut inside if playing on the right wing.

This means Everton could play several different formations to suit opponents and perhaps also adjust if the team were playing home or away.

On the debit side, Lemar hasn’t featured much in La Liga this season, he’s not contributed much in terms of goals and assists so was he struggling because he is out of his depth in the Spanish league? In addition, he is not the most consistent of finishers either.

Looking at his past stats, Lemar scored goals and created assists regularly in France’s Ligue 1 before his expensive move to Athletico Madrid in July 2018. But those have dried up since. Maybe a change in scenery would revive him.

So there we are a situation that does raise all the usual questions about whether he would be able to deliver in the Premier League if he moved to England. Is Lemar the right player?