In relatively recent memory, has there been a more confounding Everton player than Abdoulaye Doucouré? Simultaneously perhaps the Club’s most important player over the past five years and one that arguably divides opinion more than any other, the former Rennes and Watford man reaches a crossroads this summer as the Toffees embark on what they hope will be a transformative period in their history under new ownership and the stewardship of their most consistent manager of the Premier League era.
David Moyes is expected to lead a revamped recruitment setup at Finch Farm charged with remoulding a squad that will have just a dozen or so players under contract at the end of the current campaign. A further 13 first-teamers either see their loan spells come to an end or their current deals expire and while some will be offered the chance to stay, the majority probably won’t, meaning that there will be a proverbial revolving door in Halewood over the close season as an unprecedented rebuild gets underway.
One of those players who could be invited to stay is Doucouré. The two-year contract extension he signed in the autumn of 2023 comes to an end in June after Everton declined to exercise the option they had to extend his stay by a further year on his existing terms.
As he explained after scoring the dramatic stoppage-time winner against Nottingham Forest, there is nothing yet on the table from the Club in terms of a new contract — when asked about new contract negotiations, Moyes has insisted that will be handled in due course — but Doucouré’s celebration in front of the jubilant away fans at the City Ground left no room for doubt that he wants to remain an Everton player.
"I can't talk too much about [my contract situation],” he said after that game, “but it is maybe my last moments at the club and at the moment it is very quiet on the club side. I love this club. Since the moment I signed, always I want to stay. My contract is running out so let's see what happens in the next couple of weeks. But I love this club."
The terms of any new deal will be pivotal to whether he stays or goes this summer. Doucouré is among the top two earners at Everton with a reported weekly salary of £120,000, one that won’t jive with what is expected to be a more restrictive and disciplined wage structure under The Friedkin Group than the one instituted by Farhad Moshiri’s administration.
Doucouré’s goal against Forest underlined his importance to the current team but at the age of 32, he couldn’t be regarded as a long-term solution in what is a hugely important area of the team. Nevertheless, despite the possibilities provided by the likes of Charly Alcaraz and Iliman Ndiaye in that role behind the striker, Moyes has kept him anchored him in the starting role since succeeding Sean Dyche in January so one would imagine that if the player were willing to re-sign on terms that make sense for Everton, his manager would be only too happy to keep him around.
“I love this club. Since the moment I signed, always I want to stay. My contract is running out so let's see what happens in the next couple of weeks. But I love this club.”
Abdoulaye Doucouré
Supporter sentiment has been mixed, however. Some see the work-rate and goal threat he offers as having been indispensable to the Blues this season and that he would, therefore, make for a valuable squad player over the next couple of years. Others view this summer as the ideal opportunity to break from the past and build a vibrant young team around more technically gifted players that is capable of challenging in the top half of the division next season.
Though the arrival in the close season of 2020 of Colombian star James Rodriguez and Brazilian midfielder Allan might have garnered more attention, the £20m signing of Doucouré from Watford during the same summer ended up being the most important of that trio of midfield additions. Having surveyed the squad he had inherited from Marco Silva over the second half of the 2019/20 campaign, Carlo Ancelotti was left in no doubt that Everton’s mid-section was in urgent need of physical strength and creativity.
When he was fit, James provided the silky skills and the flair to assist and score goals while Allan offered tenacity, industry and ball-retention. Doucouré, a stand-out for the Hornets over four years at Vicarage Road, added power, a robust physique and additional goal threat as a more genuine box-to-box presence. Having outlasted both South Americans at Goodison by a considerable distance, the former France international has more than repaid his transfer fee and stands as the most successful of those three Ancelotti acquisitions, even if not all of the Italian’s successors could appreciate what he could bring to the team.
Doucouré played 29 times in the Premier League in that Covid-affected 2020/21 season and made the same number of starts the following year after Ancelotti had departed and Rafael Benitez been drafted in as a controversial replacement but with just four scored across those two campaigns, his goals return was disappointing.
That, combined with his clumsiness on the ball, suspect decision-making in key areas and a clash of personalities perhaps led to him eventually being sidelined by Frank Lampard after he had come on board in place of Benitez who was sacked halfway through the 2021/22 season. The Londoner initially retained Doucouré as a first-choice starter as he steered the Toffees to safety with a game to spare but after his start to the following season was disrupted by a hamstring issue, Doucouré fell out of favour with the new boss, who was attempting to institute a more pass- and possession-based style at Goodison.
Doucouré didn’t start another Premier League match until Lampard was dismissed himself in January 2023 and he was left out of the squad entirely for the trip to West Ham that ultimately cost the latter his job. However, when the Everton Board turned to Dyche that month, this latest head coach immediately saw what the long-ignored midfielder could offer in what was to be a much more physical, back-to-basics approach to mounting another bid to avoid relegation.
Doucouré came into his own under Dyche and there’s a strong argument to made that were it not for him, his goals and all-round contribution, Everton would have gone down in 2022/23. With the exception of the away game at Arsenal in March and the home clash with Tottenham where a rush of blood to to the head saw him sent off for an altercation with Harry Kane and banned for three matches, the Meulan-en-Yvelines–born man was ever-present over the rest of the season.
He scored vital goals in 2-2 draws at Forest and Chelsea but saved his best output for the final month of the campaign, weighing in with a wonderful brace at Brighton in a stunning 5-1 win on the south coast and then the all-important winning goal against Bournemouth, a walloping first-time shot from the edge of the box that saw the Toffees pull off another great escape from the drop on the final day.
In 2023/24, as Everton shrugged off an abysmal start to the campaign and then the hammer blow of a 10-point penalty from the Premier League for breaching profitability and sustainability rules (PSR) that was later reduced to six points before a second charge saw two tacked back on, Abdoulaye racked up his highest tally of appearances since arriving from Watford and weighed in with seven goals.
With his tireless running in the press, versatility as an unorthodox “number 10”, aerial and goal threat and overall strength, Doucouré had shown himself to be a hugely valuable component of a team battling against PSR restrictions and the need to sell its best players to retain its top-flight status. However, having finished 2023/24 with 48 points (without the eight deducted by the league) and added some potentially exciting forward additions in the summer in the form of Ndiaye and Jesper Lindstrøm, the onus on both manager and players alike was to show that they were capable of evolving as Everton began to look towards a new future at Bramley-Moore Dock.
As any long-suffering Evertonian knows, the Blues got off to another horrendous start this season. It wasn’t until the end of September that they got their first win in the League (Doucouré scored in the third round of the Carabao Cup but Everton bombed out on penalties to Southampton following a dreadful performance) and they would win just twice more until Dyche was sacked in January.
As the former boss floundered trying to find the right blend and tactics to turn the side’s poor performances around, frustration mounted among many fans that Everton’s most creative and dangerous player, Ndiaye, was all too often reduced to a peripheral figure playing wide on the left while Doucouré’s limitations with the ball at his feet and in key counterattacking situations were routinely exposed.
Perhaps trapped by his innate pragmatism, inability to institute a more dynamic style of play at Goodison, and the harrowing 3-2 defeat to Bournemouth in late August — Ndiaye started in place of Doucouré in that game but, paradoxically to the manager’s selection policy henceforth regarding the latter, the two players had swapped places before the Toffees’ epic nine-minute collapse from being 2-0 up — Dyche reinstated Doucouré as a permanent fixture in the starting line-up.
Whatever alchemy Dyche had drawn on in key parts of the previous season (the Blues had gone on a miserable run of 13 games without a win, a club record for the Premier League era but managed two streaky runs of results that propelled well clear of relegation danger, even with those two points deductions) had dissipated. With or without one of his most important players, it seemed he couldn’t buy a win and with no league goals at all in the first 19 matches, Doucouré had become a source of frustration for many Evertonians. Worse, he had come to be seen by many as a liability at a time when the team should have been kicking on.
Enter Moyes who brought about an immediate revival in Everton’s fortunes, with No 16 very much at the forefront of a sequence of results that has seen the Toffees lose just three times in 13 league games and ascend to a season-high 13th place in the table. Doucouré has scored three times already in that spell and in his post-match assessments, Moyes has made no secret of his admiration for the French-born player.
The value of his thunderous strike against Bournemouth in May 2023 and the two he notched at Brighton in the same month can be measured in the tens of millions. He holds Everton records for the fastest ever goal scored at Goodison Park (scored against Leicester in February) and the latest away goal ever scored by a Blues player (his recent 95th-minute winner at Forest).
Wen he plays like ye nan but then scores like zidane thats doucoure
— Lyle Lanley (@teL4__) April 21, 2025
On the flip side, however, social media is often alive during matches with posts from fans frustrated by Doucouré’s sloppiness on the ball, profligacy in front of goal or in dangerous moments in transition, and his struggles in tight situations where subtlety and intricate passes in and around the opposition box are required to unlock a defence. (His brilliant footwork in Saturday’s home defeat to Manchester City which ended with him forcing a good save from Stefan Ortega, was a rare but welcome moment of tremendous composure).
How he fits into a team that is expected to change in terms of age, style and profile as Moyes builds for the future isn’t entirely clear, although there is a fear that should he stay on, the manager might still rely as heavily going forward on this “square peg in a round hole” as did his predecessor.
Given the scale of the rebuilding job at hand and the number of potential deportees this summer, though, there is a strong case for retaining a player of his vast experience and potential for impact if the right contract terms can be agreed on, say, a two-year deal. As a versatile squad player, one capable of playing in a couple of key central positions and who, like Idrissa Gueye, is showing no signs of slowing down as he ploughs on into his 30s, Abdoulaye Doucouré could still have plenty to the offer the club he has taken to his heart.
If not, Blues fans will always have some hugely important moments to treasure from his half decade as a Toffee, his place in Everton history and folklore assured.
Reader Responses
Selected thoughts from readers22/04/2025 12:47:06
Peter Fancy
You nailed it. But I would like to see Doucoure ‘s contribution with some decent skilled players around him.
He has been the catalyst in some games and then he goes AWOL.
Maybe that’s due to our inconsistency. The same goes for Gana, Ndiaye, Alcaraz. They all have qualities, but I think they need some better technically skilled around them.
For me that won’t be achieved if we still have the likes of Harrison, Linstrom, Broja, Beto, Patterson, Young, Keane,DCL.. I'm confused about Chermiti and Tim.
22/04/2025 12:49:39
He is a very Marmite isn't he, and frustrating, chap and I, like many others I suspect, don't really know what to think about another contract for him.
On the plus side, if much different terms are acceptable to him, there is a good argument for him staying for one or two years as he provides a number of goals from somewhere when none appear possible. In addition, if he is kept we know that he always works hard (often looking like a headless chicken I know), but gets though a tremendous amount of yards each match.
On the other hand I wonder if that application is often wasted and would be better used if there was a player with technical ability in his place as his goal return, overall, is nothing special. Question. Is Charly that person?
Whichever way the Club go opinions are going to be divided. The fact that the current and previous managers have thought him to be a valuable asset probably means he will be kept if the terms are acceptable to all. I would be happy with that I suppose if that was the decision because they know more than me.
22/04/2025 15:45:52
Doucoure does not have the ability to play well in a possession based team simply because he loses possession too easily, but he is an asset in a team that defends well,scraps and harasses in midfield and breaks fast.I think that it is likely that Moyes will set the team up in a way that suits Doucoure's skills and that he will be retained if a contract can be agreed.
22/04/2025 16:54:29
I would definitely keep him as a squad player, we have so many others we need to replace this summer, you can't do it all at once. Interesting hearing him name checked on the Monday Night Club as a player promoted clubs should be looking at. If one of Burnley or Leeds was able to snap up Doucoure, Gueye, Keane and DCL you'd back them to stay up.
22/04/2025 21:30:59
Jack Plant 5
Personally, I wouldn’t be getting rid of Gueye too soon.
I’d say he still has a couple of Seasons left in him, at the Top Level.
A player of his calibre doesn’t come cheap and is hard to find.
He’s, already with us, so there’s no transfer fee.. only wages.
He’s having one of his best Seasons with us and as Moyes says, « he plays like a young player « .
As I mentioned in my earlier post, quality abounding, Gueye could help us enormously, in our propulsion towards the European spots for next Season, or, the Season after.
Add Your Thoughts
Only registered users of Evertonia can participate in discussions.
Or Join as Evertonia Member — it takes just a few minutes and will allow you to post your thoughts on artices across the site.
22/04/2025 11:55:23
If an agreement can be reached I would keep on for another year on reduced wages and as a squad player, but would hope to see Alcaraz or similar in the 10 role next year. Too many poor passes / bad decisions / heavy touches from Doucoure.