Gabriel Agbonlahor says he's 'never seen' a defensive midfielder as slow as Everton's Allan.
The lowdown
Everton lost 5-0 at Tottenham Hotspur on Monday night, leaving them just a point above the relegation zone, albeit with a game in hand on Burnley.
Allan saw out the full 90 in North London, as he's done in all five of Frank Lampard's Premier League games so far.
He was a regular under predecessor Rafael Benitez too, with 21 starts from a possible 25 in the top flight this season.
The latest
Speaking to Football Insider, former Aston Villa striker Agbonlahor said that Lampard is far from blessed with options in central midfield.
He believes Dele Alli and Donny van de Beek struggled against Tottenham Hotspur, while £70,000-per-week Brazilian Allan looked like he had virtually no running power.
"It's a bit strange that Dele Alli hasn't started a game yet," he said.
"Even when he came on it didn't look like he had anything to offer. It's a bit of a worry.
"Frank Lampard will look at Van De Beek as well, after that performance you can see why Man United didn't play him much. He was very poor, playing sidewards whenever he got the ball and not playing forwards.
"There are a lot of problems at Everton. Allan as well. He hasn't got any legs, he couldn't catch my kids if they were running. I've never seen a defensive midfielder so slow."
The verdict
Allan was actually Everton's strongest performer in the defeat on Monday, if you go by SofaScore ratings.
That may not be saying much - he only scored 6.8 out of 10 - but he did win five out of eight ground duels and register a passing accuracy of 87% (including four out of five long balls).
From that point of view, he's a slightly curious target for Agbonlahor.
Having said that, he is dribbled past more often than any other Everton player (2.8 times per 90 minutes) and makes the third most fouls (1.2) and maybe that suggests players are able to occasionally power past him, leading him to cynically bring them down.
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