View: Everton midfielder Abdoulaye Doucoure needs to deliver after poor displays
Everton will face Crystal Palace on Thursday (19 May) in a must-win game for the club at Goodison Park.
Frank Lampard will want his players to put in another strong home performance, and that is why the Toffees boss will want Abdoulaye Doucoure to return to his best form.
The 28-year-old has been poor in the last few games. He is a key player and capable of producing a lot better performances than this.
Apart from his performance in the 1-0 win against Chelsea, he was very ordinary elsewhere.
There can be two reasons for that. First, after coming back from an injury, maybe he is struggling to recapture the old form.
Secondly, Rafa Benitez got the best out of him by playing him in an advanced role. He was bombing into the box and was given a free role.
Under Lampard, Doucoure has been tasked to stay in his position and control the game.
He is a typical box to box midfielder who has got bundles of energy. He is not a fantastic passer of the ball like Andre Gomes or Fabian Delph nor he is a pure defensive midfielder like Allan.
Against Brentford, Lampard used Doucoure and Gomes in midfield, where the former played much deeper.
The Toffees went down to ten men early, but Doucoure’s influenced dramatically waned. He failed to register a single tackle in the game, and could manage only 28 passes, according to WhoScored.com.
With Delph likely to be absent once more, Lampard will pin hopes that Doucoure will come good ahead of this massive clash.
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