Transfer dribble #6: Evann Guessand and what he can do for Aston Villa
Evann Guessand, Jack Grealish and transfer round-up
The pre-season format of this will be as free-flowing as peak Kevin De Bruyne, covering Premier League transfers, all sorts of FPL stuff, or weird things people say about football data.
Once we enter the regular season, it will be more about actionable fantasy advice, which will help you better understand the data and make sounder managerial decisions. So, bear with me.
Evann Guessand: The athletic Ivorian shaking up Villa’s Attack?
It’s safe to say that Aston Villa are one of the most discussed teams when it comes to building our Gameweek 1 FPL drafts.
Fixtures are nice, and there are several pretty reliable picks. That’s why the news about them reportedly signing Evann Guessand hits like a late goal from your £6.5m differential.
From a broader footballing perspective, the 24-year-old from Côte d'Ivoire has just had a breakthrough season in Ligue 1 with OGC Nice, scoring 12 goals and providing 7 assists. Those figures suggest he could be a versatile player with a proper attacking threat, and he might adapt fairly quickly to the Premier League as he approaches his prime years.
Positionally, Guessand were a bit all over the place last season. You could describe him as a hybrid forward capable of covering multiple roles. He played around 2,800 minutes on the pitch, with the majority — about 1,200 — in the number ten role. There were 600 minutes on the right wing, and a significant portion of his playing time also came as a number 9.
He averaged (per 90):
2 shots
0.30 xG
0.39 goals
0.16 xA
0.26 assists
In total, he accumulated 63 shots with 9 xG, 10 post-shot xG, and 12 goals, while his shot selection looked pretty good—only a few attempts from outside the box, with most shots coming from the central areas inside the box.
He took 39 shots with his right foot, 14 with the left, and 10 headers (converted three). Overall, he’s pretty solid in the air.
What is also important is that all of his expected assists came from open play. Most of the creative threat lies in his ability to make both on- and off-ball runs into the box, and then distribute the ball to his teammates.
But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a variety in his passing—he can create from wide areas, play some nice through-balls from deeper positions and half-spaces, or get into the cutback zones.
When you examine his goal probability added numbers, which is a metric that assesses the likelihood of his touches with the ball increasing the team’s chance of scoring, he performs reasonably well. Not at an elite level, but he does a lot of things fairly well.
This takes us to a factor you don’t see in event data—his athleticism.
Let me borrow this screenshot from a great article on scoutedfbl.com:
It essentially describes his style of play as someone who makes a high volume of both runs in behind to receive and passes to someone who… runs in behind. Also, it’s pleasing to see my favourite player, Yankuba Minteh, so close to Salah. I guarantee you that he’s an ever-present figure on Michael Edwards’ whiteboards.
Guessand is also someone who helps you to press intensively, as his tackling success rate in the final third of the pitch is exceptional.
Now, thanks to his well-roundedness, he can play several roles in the Aston Villa squad. He and Rogers can both operate in the centre and on the right depending on the match-up, or he can deputise for Ollie Watkins up front if he needs a rest or sustains an injury. Additionally, he acts as a safety net in case Watkins leaves the team during the summer transfer window.
The dream of picking a £5.5m midfielder with a substantial final product in Donyell Malen is likely over. Even before Guessand’s arrival, he was a minute’s risk, and he’s even more so now.
Edit: I wrote this part of the newsletter on Wednesday before Morgan Rogers went off injured early in the pre-season game against Roma, so this is something to monitor.
Jack Grealish might be back
I love the freedom to write about anything I bloody want.
For example, about Jack Grealish (£6.5m MID) in August 2025.
Because, folks, Peaky Jack might be back on the menu soon, even though we’re still in the realm of rumours. But who doesn’t enjoy a bit of speculation?
Over his last four seasons in City, the Englishman amassed about 6,300 minutes, but only 2,000 in total over the last two. Unlike many others, I’m convinced that whenever he was on the pitch, he did well.
He was a progressive runs monster, a fine dribbler, and a creative force to reckon with, who shone in advanced goal probability added models, even in a side full of creative and attacking talent. His runs and passes SIGNIFICANTLY increased the team’s chance of scoring.
For example, over the last four seasons, he’s still ranked in the 95th+ percentile for expected assists, passes leading directly to a shot, volume of progressive runs, and GPA from both carries and passes.
Don’t let a low goal threat — or better put, a low-ish volume of dangerous shots — cloud your judgment. He was never a player who would score 10 goals each season, but he’s a genius creator who can also score some.
As time went on, he lost some of his eagerness to be more courageous and cheeky, but I am convinced that even though he will be 30 years old in September, he still has at least one more great season in him.
And I can’t wait to see him play regularly again. Give me all these trademark cutbacks and drilled passes into the box.
Thierno Barry stonks go up.
A little transfer round-up
There were several pretty interesting transfers this week:
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall (£5.0m) is now officially an Everton player. David Moyes was instructed to improve their attack, and KDH is an important piece of the puzzle. Number eight, who can provide a substantial final product, as he demonstrated in the 2023/2024 Championship season, providing 12 goals and 14 assists. With the current Everton team, you can expect him to be reasonably advanced. But let’s see how they line up first.
Martin Dúbravka to Burnley. We now have our starting £4.0m goalkeeper after all, as I believe he’s a better player than Max Weiß, Václav Hladký, and Etienne Green. Also, it means more of these early Bench Boosts with very little information on basically everything *chuckles*.
Liverpool agreed a €53 million plus add-ons deal to sell Darwin Núñez to Al Hilal, which makes Alexander Isak’s arrival very plausible, and we will hear about it a lot in the coming days.
Spurs welcomed their new number 6, former Bayern Munich and Fulham player João Palhinha. They definitely needed a destroyer-type defensive midfielder, and even though this is a short-term solution (a season-long loan deal), I don’t mind that transfer. It gives the team time to find a solution for the next season — a player who does the same things as Palhinha, but adds something extra on the ball.
Jorrel Hato signed for Chelsea, and those who own Marc Cucurella (£6.5m) had a mini heart attack, as he is this 19-year-old CB/LB hybrid with great leadership potential. Despite that, I do believe Cucurella’s starting spot is secure for now. Although Hato already has almost 7,000 Eredivisie minutes under his belt, he will still need some time to adapt, and Chelsea haven’t even started their pre-season.
Estevao Willian is officially a Chelsea player. In terms of FPL, quite irrelevant information, as a) Chelsea are pretty stacked when it comes to wingers, b) this will be his first season in Europe, and c) he’s still only 18 years old. He is firmly in the “wonderkid” category, but it’s still too early to tell if he will win the Ballon d’Or or end up on a loan at Getafe in the 2030/2031 season.
We can finally play FPL on the desktop
All is forgiven.
This will increase the number of drafts I complete this week by approximately 4,567%.
Dropdown menus, here we go!
That’s a wrap for today!
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Until the next one.