Benitez comments to Doucoure good sign for Everton

Everton manager Rafa Benitez has been urging his midfielder Abdoulaye Doucoure to get more involved in the team’s attacking play this coming season.

The lack of support and goals from midfield was one of the many problems with this Everton team last season and finding ways to improve the impact of the midfield in the final third is a key issue.

This is something I have previously touched on several times. The need for more creativity and goals from the middle of the park would make a significant difference in the Toffees results and take pressure off the forwards.

Last summer under Carlo Ancelotti the Blues set out to strengthen a midfield that had been far too easily bypassed or overcome and lacked energy and defensive solidity.

So Ancelotti and Director of Football Marcel Brands brought in Allan and Doucoure to provide those qualities.

Both did just that and certainly improved the quality of the team’s midfield although both, particualarly Allan, spent time out injured so undermining to some extent their effectiveness.

But while the two signings did improve the defensive screen in front of the defence and deliver greater energy overall, they didn’t contribute much offensively.

Allan and Doucoure are both players who have the talent to contribute signifcantly to their side’s attacking threat as they have creative skill and goal-scoring ability and have done in the past with previous teams.

But last season they were inhibited by both the way Ancelotti wanted to play and especially due to the lack of additional support, most particularly the continued absence of Jean-Philippe Gbamin.

First of all, for much of the season Ancelotti tended to want to play a central midfield two and this meant given the problems with the Toffees defence and especially the ever-present issues at right-back this meant Doucoure was often dropping back to cover for Seamus Coleman.

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Then when Allan got injured it put even more pressure on the Frenchman to play a deeper and more defensive role.

And the seemingly endless injury problems of the Ivory Coast international, which kept him out of the Everton side again for almost all of last season, meant both Allan and Doucoure were required to play much more deeply and defensively and so negated their attacking contribution.

We saw occasionally what they could offer offensively, particularly when Allan was able to get forward more for example against Leeds last season.

Now, Benitez has been speaking to Doucoure about how important it will be for him and perhaps also his Brazilian team-mate to get forward more next season. If Gbamin can stay fit and offer that additional defensive strength and cover, while he too is comfortable coming forward, perhaps both can get forward much more consistently.

In his past seasons at Watford the French midfielder has chipped in with an average of just under five goals a season while he managed only half that with just two last season. If he could replicate that past higher average in this campaign and Allan too was able to add four or five and a few assists then it might make a big difference to where this team finishes.

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