Richarlison key for Everton season end

As we near the much anticipated resumption of the Premier League in a few weeks time, one player who will be key to Everton finishing the 2019-20 season as strongly as possible, is Richarlison.

The Brazilian tyro has been growing and improving all the time in his still relatively new Everton career. But there is a feeling much more is to come from him.

Richarlison has proved many doubters wrong, at least up to a point anyway. His £50 million move from Watford in 2018, had some questioning the sanity of the transfer market as the young Brazil forward hadn’t exactly set the Premier League on fire while at Vicarage Road.

So although there had been glimpses of what he could offer, to some extent these critics had a point. Richarlison was still a raw and inexperienced talent and the Toffees were certainly taking a big chance when they signed him.

Then manager Marco Silva knew him well of course, having brought him to England in the first place as Watford boss and was certainly a big fan of the Brazilian.

Richarlison’s early time at Goodison Park last season wasn’t an unqualified success for sure, but there was enough to show that he could become a very fine player.

Part of the problem was that Richarlison didn’t have a settled position in the team. As Silva struggled to find the right formation and players, Richarlison was chopped and changed around playing wide one week or centrally the next. This kind of uncertainty won’t help a young player find his feet at a new club.

Eventually, late in the 2018-19 campaign and more by chance than inspiration, Silva found a balance to his team, which was finally able to perform with some quality and consistency.

Richarlison was now operating on the right wing and began to strike up a good understanding with right-back Seamus Coleman, as fellow Brazilian Bernard did with left-back Lucas Digne on the other flank.

Then in the summer Everton sold a big piece of this new jigsaw, midfield ball-winner and water carrier Idrissa Gueye. His replacement, Jean-Philippe Gbamin was almost immediately injured and has barely played since.

So it was basically back to the drawing board for the Blues this season. With this and other issues, Silva was never able to find that winning formula again, and after some horrendous results, was finally sacked in December.

New manager Carlo Ancelotti stuck with the revised 4-4-2 formation that temporary boss Duncan Ferguson had put in place during his brief tenure in charge.

Part of this meant that Richarlison was again pushed up front alongside Dominic Calvert-Lewin in  a new-look front two. He was acting as a foil for the English centre-forward who was now able to concentrate on getting into the box to score goals.

One of the ways that Richarlison is able to make this work is his fantastic ability in the air. The Brazilian is one of the best headers of the ball in the Premier League and his prowess in this department makes him a very dangerous attacking player.

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He is also a very hard-working individual who puts in plenty of work closing down opponents and winning the ball, allowing the Toffees to press more effectively.

He can provide the physical challenge and work rate off the ball that frees up Calvert-Lewin to focus on finding space and scoring his goals.

That embryonic partnership almost immediately began to produce results with Richarlison and Calvert-Lewin almost looking like new players and crucially scoring regular goals.

Everton face some difficult and important games when the season resumes, starting with a derby against champions-elect Liverpool.

Richarlison’s all-round excellence, work-rate, consistency and goal threat is going to be vital to helping propel the Blues froward as they try and get into the European places by season’s end.