Everton new boy Richarlison has certainly hit the ground running since he arrived at Goodison Park this summer.

It cost Everton £50m to bring the twenty-one year old from Watford and the player himself hasn’t been phased by the hefty price tag.

In his first six Premier League outings for The Toffees, the forward has banged in four goals and also received a red card.

His form in England this term has been recognised in his homeland and last month he was selected to represent Brazil for the first time, he scored a brace in his second cap against El Salvador. He has also retained his place in the Selecao squad that will face Saudi Arabia and Argentina later on this week.

Richarlison seems to flourish when he plays under Marco Silva. The Portuguese manager was the Brazilian’s boss at Watford for the beginning of last season and he’s now his gaffer at Everton. The two seem to have a real connection and Silva knows how to get the best out of the attacker.

Interestingly Marco decided to play Richarlison as the Toffees main striker in their last game against Leicester City. Everton won the game 2-1 and the young Brazilian scored a nice close ranged volley to open the scoring.

The number nine role has been a position of concern for Everton thus far under Marco Silva. Cenk Tosun and Oumar Niasse have been too inconsistent, they’ve only scored one between them during this current league campaign.

So against the Foxes, Silva decided to give Richarlison’s fellow Brazilian Bernard his first start of the season. That meant that former Shakhtar Donetsk man was played out on the lefthand side and Richardson was pushed through the middle with Gylfi Sigurdsson playing in behind him and Theo Walcott playing on the right wing.

That forward line caused Leicester no end of problems. Bernard flourished in his first Toffees start and Sigurdsson was immense as the number ten, scoring a wonderful winner.

But for me, a huge positive was the performance of Richarlison as the main striker.

His energy, work-rate and his smart runs proved to be very difficult for the opposing defence. It wasn’t by chance that it was Richarlison on the receiving end of two bad tackles from Wes Morgan which ultimately saw the Foxes captain seeing red in the sixty-third minute. In fact, it’s fair to say that Richarlison had run Morgan ragged before his sending off.

Interestingly the twenty-one year old still tended to come out onto the left wing, linking up repeatedly with Bernard. That won’t be a bad thing if he continually takes a marker out there with him and it frees up space for either Sigurdsson or Walcott to run into.

Richarlison is also very good in the air and he can be quite physical too. That means he won’t be intimated by strong central defenders, as he proved with his performance up against Morgan and Harry Maguire in the past weekend. Being able to hold the ball up and score with his head could mean he’s ideal to become Everton’s regular number nine in the Premier League. He also posses the pace and the tricks that will scare centre-backs.

Having Richarlison up-top with Bernard, Sigurdsson and Walcott playing behind him gives Everton a fluid attack and one that already seems to have clicked. It will be hard for any defence to stifle that can of pace, energy and creativity.

If Brazilian internationalist Richarlison can adapt to his new position and learn to stay in the middle a wee bit more then he could become Everton’s hotshot striker, something they’ve been missing since Romelu Lukakau departed in 2017.

 

 

Posted on October 9th, 2018 by scott
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