Richarlison form creates tactical dilemma for Everton and Benitez

The excellent goal-scoring form of Everton striker Richarlison continued as the Brazilian hit a brace against Saudi Arabia to put his country into the Olympic quarter finals.

So does the Everton forward’s superb form in front of goal create a potential tactical dilemma for the Blues and manager Rafa Benitez?

The future of the Brazilian star has been uncertain ever since Carlo Ancelotti left the Toffees at the beginning of June.

With that unexpected event creating uncertainty, he was also determined to play for his country in the Olympics, something that Everton were reluctant to allow after he had already played right through the Copa America all the way to the final.

Anyway, apparently new manager Benitez intervened to help smooth things over and allow Richarlison to play in Tokyo. In return he is looking for the Brazilian to replay him and the club when he does come back to England. But there was still doubt as to where his future lay.

Well his form has been electric in the Olympic tournament with five goals scored including a superb hat-trick against Germany, the first such achievement by a Premier League player.

If he plays through to the final again he won’t be able to make an immdiate impact when the Blues kick off the new Premier League season against Southampton on 14 August and so Benitez will have to plan for his continued absence as he prepares for a crucial season start.

And in the meantime, the manager has been focusing on providing better width and creativity for Dominic Calvert-Lewin, his main centre-forward, to take advantage of next season.

To that end he has signed two wingers in Andros Townsend and Demarai Gray with plenty of rumours of another one in the pipeline.

The Toffees manager also tends to favour a 4-2-3-1 formation with one centre-forward and so this might create a conundrum for Benitez as he attempts to fit all these attacking players into a workable tactical system.

This will be particuarly the case for Richarlison, especially if he comes into the team late once the season has begun.

One of the problems for the Brazilian is that he is a player who doesn’t seem to fit easily into a formation or team system.

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He has played wide on both flanks under first Marco Silva who signed him and then under Carlo Ancelotti as well as in a front two partnering Calvert-Lewin last term.

In all these positions he had been reasonably productive, he found the net thirteen times in each of the 2018-19 and 2019-20 campaigns before slumping to just seven last season.

Last season for some reason Richarlison struggled to make a consistent impact playing wide in the 4-3-3 that Ancelotti started the campaign with, perhaps because he wasn’t as involved before getting himself sent off for a trademark reckless challenge in the first derby game in October.

When he returned after his ban he again found it tough to reproduce his best even when his position was alledgely tweaked by Ancelotti to get more from him.

I’m not sure he can play as an second striker in an orthodox 4-4-2 but then again he doesn’t seem like a natural winger either, although he showed a few signs he could be more creative from that position early last season.

Assuming he is still an Everton player when he returns from the Olympics (which seems very likely now given the timing) and Benitez has signed another wide attacking player and intends to use a 4-2-3-1 formation, then where will Richarlison fit in? It will be an interesting question to see answered.