Could Allardyce end Tosun Everton misery

Stories today claim that new West Brom manager Sam Allardyce is weighing up a move for a player he signed for Everton three years ago.

That player is striker Cenk Tosun. The Turkish international’s Everton career has never taken off and he has failed to convince that he is good enough for the top echelon of the Premier League.

Now it seems as though the man who brought him to Goodison Park is considering giving him a way out of his current situation, perhaps initially on loan, as Baggies boss Allardyce looks to try and strengthen his new team’s strike force for their relegation fight this year.

It will be exactly three years ago tomorrow in January 2018 that Tosun joined Everton and he was Allardyce’s first signing as Blues manager after he had succeeded Ronald Koeman the previous November.

The striker joined from Turkish giants Besiktas and there were hopes that perhaps Everton had got themselves an underrated centre-forward who might be able to provide the goals the team so badly needed following Romelu Lukaku’s transfer to Manchester United in the summer of 2017.

Tosun is a very direct forward who suits a long-ball game such as the one Allardyce liked to play, where he gets in the penalty area and looks to be on the end of crosses and balls into the box.

He was joined up front by another high-profile Allardyce addition, Arsenal’s Theo Walcott who made the switch to Merseyside later that month. He was supposed to provide the bullets for Tosun to score his goals.

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Neither though have delivered and now Walcott has gone back to his first club Southampton on loan and it seems Tosun could soon be following him out of the Goodison exit door.

The Turk is a likable player and I think most Evertonians would wish him well if a move away helped him to find his level and revive a career in English football. He’s a footballer who always gives 100% and plays with plenty of enthusiasm and determination.

But unfortunately he doesn’t have the pace, movement or finishing ability to score goals consistently at the level Everton aspire to play at and it’s clear he is nowhere near as good a front man as his team-mate Dominic Calvert-Lewin.

Ironically the continuing development of Calvert-Lewin has seen the England man become much more predatory in the area.

He is playing more directly and focusing on getting in the box like Tosun but with the superior pace, skill and dynamism that has seen him score eleven Premier League goals so far and enables Everton to operate an effective counter-attacking game.

When Tosun joined Crystal Palace on loan last January it seemed that his time at the Blues was coming to an end and the loan might well lead to a permanent deal. Then he got injured and returned to Merseyside so it was back to square one for both the player and the club.

Tosun is on very good money at Everton (as are so many mediocre players!) so he won’t necessarily be in any hurry to leave Goodison Park. But he has had a frustrating time and as he’s entering his peak years you would think he must want to play more regular football.

Getting his wages off the books would certainly help Everton to fund moves for other new players. Perhaps a chance to be re-united with Allardyce, the man who brought him to the Premier League could persuade him it’s best to move on.