Marco Silva talks Morgan Schneiderlin

Saying that he fully believes in his quality, Marco Silva is looking for ways to restore Morgan Schneiderlin’s confidence, per an interview the manager did in today's Echo.

The player has not started for Everton since October 2nd and has only seen 287 league minutes all season.

The last two seasons have been particularly nightmarish for the Frenchman, who was one of the very best players in the Premier League when he left Southampton for Manchester United, and for spells afterward too.

The struggle for Schneiderlin in his time at Everton has been twofold, first, his position is a hard one to appreciate. He’s a deep lying passer in the defensive midfield role, so his contributions are best measured in things like accurate long balls and general ball distribution, not something more tangible that one can sink their teeth into with the regular box score.

Second, and more importantly in his time under Marco Silva, Morgan’s role is just not one we need in the team. The current midfield composition involves Idrissa Gueye acting as a midfield destroyer, Andre Gomes progressing the ball from back to front, and Gylfi Sigurdsson providing outlets to the wings. There is no deep lying playmaker and thus, no place for Schneiderlin. Nor can Morgan really approximate any of these roles, and if he replaces Gana as the defensive mid the midfield sorely lacks pace with both he and Sigurdsson on the pitch.

A very good but aging player that doesn’t fit the scheme of the club he is at, it’s a tale as old as time. Silva recognizes these things too, as we can see in these comments:

"I can see, I have to be honest It has been, until now, one of the biggest challenges I have when you talk about individual players. As you know, I like him as a football player and my profile of the No6, as I already told you, he has very, very good skills for that position.

"We are here to help him play in the starting XI in all our matches if he deserves that. We have quality in that position with Gana and Andre and other players."

The trouble is, that Marco Silva really doesn’t use a normal number 6. Silva is saying the right things about restoring the player’s confidence and getting him back into the XI but the reality is that unless he is willing to re-work his scheme to accommodate Schneiderlin I just don’t see any way that the player has a future at Everton Football Club.

If I had to guess, I see the player moving next summer and his fee being used to secure Andre Gomes permanently or some similar player to the Portuguese being brought in.