Crystal Palace's securing of Marc Guéhi on a 5-year deal is considered to be a coup for the club, but why? Here's Alex Pewter with a quickfire explanation of what makes his signing such an exciting one.
(Image from PalaceTV Interview, viewable here.)
Background
Marc Guéhi was announced as Crystal Palace's 3rd first-team signing of this transfer window, joining on a five-year contract from Chelsea. Pegged as a potential loan-signing from Cobham when Steve Cooper was linked to the then-vacant manager post, the move to get him on a permanent transfer is a surprising but ambitious one.
As reported by David Ornstein of The Athletic, the deal for Guéhi will include a future sell-on percentage for Chelsea and a first preference to match any accepted bid for him in the future.
Guéhi has earned a shot at Premier League football following a year and a half on loan at Swansea City in The Championship, where he excelled. Swansea's playoff finalist squad had a very successful defence this past season, with Guéhi playing in 19 of 20 clean sheet performances across the 46 league games.
Born in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, before moving to London aged 1, he has been at Chelsea since joining the Under-8 age group. As with many Chelsea academy prospects, he was heavily decorated at youth level with multiple cup and league wins whilst at the heart of their defence. On an international level, he has already been capped from Under-16 to Under-21 level for England and is now Palace's 2nd Under-17 World Cup winner on the books with midfielder Nya Kirby.
Playing Style
Marc Guéhi would appear to be a defence-first centre back, winning a high percentage of 1-on-1 duels in the air and on the ground. At Swansea, they operated three-person and four-person systems on different occasions, showing he has a level of tactical flexibility. The Championship is a physical league, and Guéhi dealt well with that challenge. His mobility allowed him to close space quickly, leading to solid interceptions numbers on top of his tackling statistics.
On the ball, Guéhi showed confidence at Swansea and carried the ball forward frequently into space. As a pure passer, he may develop his game to suit Vieira's shorter-passing style but appears to have the base skills needed to develop.
🚨 TRANSFER ALERT 🚨
— smarterscout (@smarterscout) July 16, 2021
Crystal Palace are close to signing Marc Guéhi from Chelsea, per @David_Ornstein. The former Swansea loanee is a smarterscout young prospect and an outstanding defender, with great skill in duels at a Premier League standard. Less effective on the ball:
1/2 pic.twitter.com/mZ1EfdMkNR
Outlook
Guéhi's addition helps to address the most significant "age" issue that Palace has been facing. Having only just turned 21, he is almost a decade younger than the next senior central defender, Martin Kelly. On paper, it took a combination of Sakho, Tomkins, Dann, and Cahill to cover only one of the two centre-back spots last season. Given the salaries these players commanded, it wasn't an effective use of the team's budget.
His 3500 minutes of game time in the league last season shows he was entrusted to play a large part of the season at a premium position and has the durability to match. There will be growing pains for any young defender entering top-flight football, so it may be more realistic to see Guéhi eased into action, especially given the strength of the initial fixture list.
Positionally, it would make sense that under Patrick Vieira's projected 4-3-3 formation, that Guéhi would operate as the left-centre-back filled primarily last year by Gary Cahill the previous season, as he was comfortable playing down this side for Swansea. It would appear all the defenders are going to be asked to play a higher volume of passes than fans will be used to at Palace, as a tactical preference, so Guéhi would be an essential cornerstone of the way the team would need to play.