Sam Allardyce’s Everton were knocked out of the 3rd round of the FA Cup earlier this week at Anfield but the Everton fans have something to look forward to next week as they will be able to field an in-form striker in the form of Cenk Tosun, at Wembley against Tottenham Hotspur.
The Toffees announced the signing of the Turkish sensation for £27m and will hope that he can bring his form to the Goodison Park and solve their woes in front of goal. So who is Tosun and what will he bring to the Premier League?
Tosun’s Numbers:
A product of the Eintracht Frankfurt academy, Tosun was relatively unknown in the Turkish top division till 2014, when he made a move to Besiktas. Ever since, he has not turned back and has only become better, standing as one of the most productive strikers in world football in 2017.
He has 80 goals and 31 assists in 205 Super Lig appearances but only 96 of them came at the Vodafone Arena, where he managed 41 goals to his name. He made his debut for the Turkish national team in 2013 and has 8 goals in 25 appearances for his country. At just 26, he will still get better and Everton will hope that he will help their club in his prime as a player.
Style Of Play / Strengths and Weaknesses:
A centre-forward, in every sense of the word, Tosun is a deadly finisher, who has one of the highest conversion rates in Europe in the last couple of seasons, among players with more than 15 goals in a campaign. He hardly misses his target and is devastating when given space and time in and around the box.
Though not too strong in the air, Tosun has a knack for finding positions to score constantly and is almost impossible to mark. He loves to play on the shoulder of the full-backs rather than the CBs and is adept at drifting in with his runs and disassembling even the most well-drilled backlines. He is hardly fazed by an occasion, which shows in his 5 goals and 2 assists in just 12 UCL appearances and Everton surely have got a star at their disposal.
He does not engage in too many physical battles and might take a bit of time to get going especially in the build-up play and in crowded areas but his deft and accomplished finishing ability will prove to be more than enough for him to feature regularly from the start.
Will He Start At Wembley?
Having scored just 25 goals in 22 league games this season, the Toffees definitely need a striker of Tosun’s quality after they failed to replace Romelu Lukaku in the summer. The likes of Oumar Niasse, Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Sandro Ramirez are slowly showing some promise under the new manager but Tosun is way ahead of those names, not just on form but also in quality.
A strike force of Tosun, accompanied by the likes of Gylfi Sigurdsson and Wayne Rooney is not going to be too easy to defend and Mauricio Pochettino’s men have a serious task at their hands next weekend.
Stats Courtesy: Whoscored
