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This article is part of Football FanCast's In Numbers series, which takes a statistical look at performances, season-long form and reported transfer targets...

According to The Guardian, Everton are weighing up a move for Manchester City midfielder Fabian Delph, with Marco Silva potentially needing to add depth in midfield despite the arrival of Andre Gomes from Barcelona.

The England international has seen competition for game time increase significantly this summer, after the Premier League champions recruited Rodri in a club-record deal from Atletico Madrid, whilst they also signed left-back Angelino from PSV - both players play in positions that Delph can occupy.

There is no indication as to how much the former Leeds man would cost, but he is rated at £13.5m on Transfermarkt.

Meanwhile, Paris Saint-Germain have reignited their interest in Idrissa Gueye. The French champions wanted the Senegal ace back in January, and their pursuit led to the 29-year-old handing in a transfer request - the Parisians have offered €30m this time around.

Check out some amazing tekkers in the video below...

With all this transfer speculation going on, one thing is for certain - Everton cannot view Delph as a replacement for Gueye. Not by any means.

As you can see from the graphic above, Delph is a significantly less effective player from a defensive point of view.

Gueye makes more than double the amount of tackles per game than the City man completes, whilst he also records one more interception per game than the Citizens' No.18.

Marco Silva prefers to play with a two-man midfield, where Gueye tends to do the dirty work whilst Andre Gomes keeps things ticking over nicely - you can tell that the two aren't on the same level defensively by Gomes' average of 1.4 tackles per game.

As a result of that, if the Toffees allowed Gueye to leave and introduced Delph as Gomes' new midfield partner, Everton would find themselves in danger of becoming too soft centred in the middle of the pitch.

You could argue that Gueye's contributions allow Gomes to focus on his side of the game too - if Delph arrived and neither he or Gomes could be the defensive shield that the Senegal international was, then the entire Everton machine could falter without their key cog.

Delph isn't anything like the African, and if the Merseysiders cash in on the 5 foot 9 midfielder they must sign a competent replacement - someone who isn't the Man City man.