Pape Gueye at Marseille 2019/20

After originally agreeing to join EPL club Watford on a five-year deal earlier this year following the conclusion of the 2019/20 campaign in France, Pape Gueye made headlines when he extraordinarily walked back his decision to join the Hornets, despite his signing already being announced by the English club via their official Twitter account.

Instead, following his departure from Le Havre, Gueye has joined Ligue 1’s runners up for the 2019/20 season, Olympique de Marseille. The 21-year-old midfielder is a product of the famed academy of Le Havre, which has produced talents such as Paul Pogba, Ferland Mendy, Benjamin Mendy, as well as Gueye’s new teammates Steve Mandanda and Dimitri Payet, down the years.

In this tactical analysis, in the form of a scout report, we will examine how Gueye performed for Le Havre last season. This tactical analysis will look at how the midfielder was utilised within Paul Le Guen’s tactics for the Ligue 2 side last season and we will attempt to explain how he may fit into André Villas-Boas’ Marseille tactics this coming season.

Positioning

Le Havre primarily lined up in a 4-4-2 shape during the 2019/20 campaign and Gueye typically occupied one of the two central midfield slots, usually the left-sided central midfield position, within that shape.

Le club doyen used the 4-4-2 in 30% of their Ligue 2 games which was more often than they lined up in any other shape, however, they did utilise a variety of different formations throughout the campaign, including a 4-3-3 which they used 10% of the time, making that their second-most frequently used formation.

The above image is Gueye’s heatmap for the 2019/20 Ligue 2 season. This shows us that he primarily played on the left side of central midfield, spending the majority of his time in a deeper area of the pitch, which is marked red on this map, however, we can see that he also ventured into the opposition’s half of the pitch frequently. However, he rarely probed too far into the final third.

Gueye is comfortable at playing a box-to-box role and he possesses enough quality in a variety of different areas of his game that allow him to do so effectively. As we will touch on later on in this tactical analysis, he is comfortable on the ball and his technical ability can come in handy for his team when he is utilised in a deeper role in possession or when he is situated higher up the pitch during a period of possession.