Everton linked with another mediocre midfielder

The willingness of Everton’s ownership to spend money in the transfer windows comes with the downside that just about every player in every league who has been decent for even one game in the season ends up getting linked with the Blues at some point or the other.

We have exactly that today, with Spanish outlet Marca saying Everton and Sevilla are looking at Omar Mascarell, a Spain-born 24-year-old defensive midfielder who plies his trade with Eintracht Frankfurt in the German Bundesliga, and has played exactly once (this last weekend) after returning from a achilles tendon injury that kept him out for five months.

As a 17-year-old, Mascarell went into the Real Madrid prospects system where he bounced around between their youth and second division teams before making a solitary senior side appearance. Los Merengues appeared to give up on him in the 2014-15 season and sent him out on a half season loan to Derby in the Championship where he played in 30 games. He moved to Eintracht Frankfurt in the 2016-17 season where he played in 33 games before sustaining his injury.

WhoScored.com

His strengths seem quite reasonable considering he’s renowned for his ball distribution as a defensive midfielder, an area where the Blues have struggled with Idrissa Gueye’s erratic passing and Morgan Schneiderlin’s lacklustre form. James McCarthy as we have seen is not a playmaker and the early chatter about target Steven N’Zonzi has all but died out now.

However (of course there’s a ‘but’), looking at his radar compared to the rest of the Bundesliga shows a much more accurate picture of the player’s ability, and it’s not good.

For a player who is expected to build up play from the back, his passing numbers are mediocre and the only thing that makes him better than Muhamed Besic is that his dispossessed numbers are great. That’s all.

Everton have needs all over the pitch, and we could certainly use an upgrade in the midfield pivot position, but Mascarell is not it. Move on.