Aston Villa can no longer ignore their Evann Guessand problem
Evann Guessand continues to represent a frustrating figure at Aston Villa.
The Ivorian is now moving into his second campaign in claret and blue after his move from OGC Nice last summer.
That switch was highly anticipated after many positive years in France.
There were hopes that he could unlock a fresh look to the front line in B6, but that couldn't be further from the truth.
The 25-year-old has been terrible for the Villans and hasn't ever looked like being good enough for Unai Emery.
And yet Guessand continues to get a chance for Villa despite maintaining the same shocking levels.
Where has it gone wrong for Evann Guessand?
I was excited as anyone when the B6 outfit stole a march on Crystal Palace to land the versatile forward.
The idea that he could come in and play as a second striker alongside Ollie Watkins had me dreaming of how the forward line would look with him, Leon Bailey, Donyell Malen and Morgan Rogers.
Instead, he operated as a right-winger and looked totally out of place in the Premier League.
He failed to score in 13 league outings, which is nothing more than he deserved for his performances.
Arguably his worst came away to Liverpool in November as Villa fell to a 2-0 defeat.
The Ivorian completed just one pass on the night and clocked up just 0.06 expected goals.
That was all made worse by his zero per cent dribble success rate as he was dispossessed twice.
Some may argue that he has been mis-profiled by Emery and playing off the right has hampered his chances to succeed.
I would actually argue that he just hasn't been good enough and hasn't deserved the chance to do anything but fill in where needed.
That was once again on show in pre-season as he featured against Bayern Munich on Friday as the Guessand problem continued in claret and blue.
Guessand threw away Aston Villa chance vs Bayern Munich
It wasn't a great overall showing from the Villans against the German giants, let's be honest.
And yet, Guessand stood out for all the wrong reasons.
Emery afforded him the chance to start in his favoured central role and he still bottled it.
His first touch was poor and he failed to truly make a positive impact in the forward line.
He has no intention, he was slow and didn't show any sort of intensity against Bayern, but he has never done that in a Villa shirt.
Guessand had a chance late in the first half, but was too slow to shoot, was dispossessed and summed up his B6 career in one phase of play.
It must be worrying that Brian Madjo genuinely looks many times better than him right now. And he's 17...
The 25-year-old represents arguably Villa's biggest problems right now, not only on the pitch, but also with the frustration he continues to cause in the stands and beyond.