I live in Spain and Valencia is the team I follow here. I have watched all Gomes' matches for Valencia in la Liga (10 of them live at Mestalla), all his matches in Europa league and all the matches he played in Champions League. So around 70 matches all together + around 20 matches for Portugal.
And he is NOT a playmaker. He is a ballmover; someone who makes easy simple passes (mostly sideways or backwards). For Valencia in La Liga he averaged around 55 passes a match and out of that around 7 forward passes a match.
Here is a very typical match for Gomes for Portugal:
Interesting observations and video. Thanks. Gomes looks tidy, but not much more in that video - even if it is much better than his dire Barca showings.
Given that Grealish played the second half of the season as the creative CM in a midfield 3, proving that he can play deeper in CM and not just as a 10, I'm not sure why we're looking to sign Gomes as well.
ITK has said we're keeping Wanyama, and Dier is obviously staying. So that's the DM / destroyer role covered. As the more creative passer, we've got Winks coming back and ITK has suggested Grealish is close. Onomah also wants to prove himself in pre-season,and his best position is as a CM with a licence to surge forward..
So, assuming Dembele goes and some kind soul takes Sissoko off our hands, if we play with a CM2, we still have squad depth.
If we switch to a CM3, then we have:
DM Dier, Wanyama
Creative CM Eriksen, Winks, Grealish
Box to Box CM Dele, Grealish, Onomah
I don't think Gomes will be cheap, IIRC Barca was looking for 40m plus a buyback clause last summer. So, I would be happier with Martial and de Ligt as the big money signings unless a Kovacic or a Rabiot becomes available to throw into that midfield mix.
Plus Gomes' confidence is completely shot by his terrible time at Barca, so he'll need games to get that confidence back. But Winks (after a year out with injury) and Grealish (moving from the Championship to the PL) will also need game time, and none of them will be first choice. And Onomah would need another loan to get competitive football if we're that overloaded with CMs.
All a bit mysterious.