Iliman Ndiaye’s position in the Everton team has become a subject of fierce debate so far this season
Iliman Ndiaye’s brace of appearances for Senegal during the international break could demonstrate the kind of attacking versatility he could bring to the Everton side. Following his £15million summer transfer from Olympique Marseille, Ndiaye has become a fan favourite because of his exciting style of play that gets spectators out of their seats as he drives at opposition defences.
The 24-year-old offers the kind of dribbling skills that Goodison Park patrons haven’t seen from a player in a royal blue jersey for a number of years, prompting ECHO columnist Michael Ball to dub him the team’s “Magic man” and supporter Ryan Rooney, a budding singer-songwriter from Norris Green to put together a special terrace chant in his honour. However, the question over what Ndiaye’s best position might be has also become a hot topic among Evertonians.
So far, he has primarily been deployed on the left wing by manager Sean Dyche, but some think he might be more effective in a central role. There has been fierce debate over the issue on the ECHO’s Royal Blue podcast with Ian Croll believing that Dwight McNeil’s switch from the left wing to supporting striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin has brought more from the Rochdale-born player, who is currently the team’s top scorer with four goals.
READ MORE: Everton facing four transfer decisions as debate continues over successful summer dealREAD MORE: Everton must make more of transfer revelation and 30-goal asset – we are playing survival football
However, Everton correspondent Joe Thomas continues to argue that while McNeil’s individual statistics might look good, the team is more balanced if the former Burnley man is out wide and providing crosses from the flank and support tracking back to left-back Vitalii Mykolenko. He also believes that as a player who can get at opponents from both sides, the Blues could get more out of Ndiaye if he was tasked with being the number 10 his squad number suggests.
After making his first Everton start on August 27 – scoring against League Two Doncaster Rovers in a Carabao Cup tie – in this central area, all of Ndiaye’s subsequent Premier League appearances under Dyche have been on the left wing. Senegal national team coach Aliou Cisse has been more open to moving the player around though, as demonstrated by his two Africa Cup of Nations qualifying appearances over the past week.
On Thursday, Ndiaye was picked in the number 10 role behind striker Nicolas Jackson of Chelsea, playing 88 minutes in the 1-0 win in Burkina Faso with former Liverpool man Sadio Mane, now of Saudi Arabia’s Al Nassr on the left wing and Crystal Palace’s Ismaila Sarr on the right in a 4-2-3-1 formation. Then with the team switching to 4-3-3 for Tuesday’s 2-0 home victory over Burundi, Ndiaye was deployed on the right of attack before making way at the interval with Mane continuing on the left and the Everton man’s namesake Cherif Ndiaye at centre-forward.
Curiously, if you look at Ndiaye’s overall career, transfermarkt claim that out of 124 appearances in total, he has only been on the left wing 19 times, with a mere eight of these matches before he came to Everton. In contrast, he has been used as a central attacking midfielder/second striker on 49 occasions, a centre-forward in 48 matches and a right winger eight times, suggesting that previous bosses have preferred to use him mostly in the middle.
