Why isn’t Cenk Tosun working out?

We were winning 3-0, things were going really well, the result was totally in hand and Sam Allardyce had a chance to give Cenk Tosun a run out at Goodison Park, and he put in an embattled defensive midfielder instead of a striker that needs something good to happen for him.

Granted that both Idrissa Gueye and Cuco Martina had picked up minor knocks, but there was ten minutes left to play against a Crystal Palace that had barely threatened all afternoon. With a chance to really step on the necks of a weaker team Allardyce played the safe card and put in Morgan Schneiderlin, who has been absolutely battered by the fans the last few weeks.

All of this detracts from the bigger issue at hand. Why is the Toffees’ £27million January signing not getting any game time. It doesn’t matter if the game is well lost (like against Arsenal), or easily won (versus Palace), Big “hate attacking football” Sam will not give Tosun any minutes to get adjusted.

According to Big “I won’t be here next season” Sam, (via the Daily Mail) Tosun is finishing well in practice but he needs to adjust to the speed of the English Premier League. Well, let’s pretend that’s true... why on earth would you not take the chance to give him game time?

Oumar Niasse scores when he wants. (I told you guys early in the year the guy is a star, haha) but other than that our strikers haven’t done a whole lot of finishing this year. Big “ready to be bored?” Sam wants to toss Tosun’s slow start on the Turk’s shoulders, and maybe there’s something to that, I’m really not sure, but honestly Sam doesn’t have a lot of credibility with me right now.

“He is struggling with the pace. That happens to more players than it doesn’t when they come in in January. There are more who struggle than succeed.

“As time goes on and the more we get closer to our safety the more we can release and see what he’s got. There is no doubting his goal-scoring ability but you have to have the capabilities to get in those positions to score, and that is the hard bit. We have to try to be patient as the team are winning without him.”

Winning? Winning you say? Saturday’s victory was only the Blues second win in ten games. Try again, Big “full of himself” Sam.

Cenk Tosun was a success back in Turkey. That doesn’t mean a whole lot to most Premier League fans and that’s understandable. Steve Walsh thought enough of him to spend a substantial amount of cash on him and that probably only has but so much weight with Everton fans right now either. In the three games Tosun has featured in, he hasn’t looked that terrible that we need to give up on him.

Davy Klaassen is another one of those players who have European pedigree and yet somehow continues to not even make the matchday squad. Granted he was not very good on the few games he featured in earlier on, but if he is so sorely unable to adjust to the pace, then give the man some minutes to find his feet. Why is Klaassen not playing for the Under-23s then? The treatment of the Dutchman is mystifying and quite worryingly Tosun is headed the same way.

All that being said, we just saw an attacker get shipped off without ever getting a proper chance in Sandro Ramirez and I really don’t want to see Cenk added to that list. He earned the love of his fan base in Turkey and I want him to be loved here too, and right now the best chance for that to happen is for Big “let’s run three DMs” Sam to have no idea what he’s talking about that.

I’m going to assume the manager is wrong and that the player has quality, mainly because the manager has done a large number of things I consider ill-advised and the player is was having a great year before he came here.

In another interview published today, Allardyce actually attributed Tosun’s struggles to the cold weather - which can only mean that the Turkish striker is not enough of a professional to ‘get on with it’, or else Big Sam’s excuses are getting more and more outlandish by the minute.

“He is struggling with the pace of the Premier League which happens to more players than it doesn’t who come in January. It is not unusual to see a centre forward struggle when they first come we have seen many, many over the years do that.

“It will be important for him to train really, really hard particularly when you are walking out and it is chucking it down with rain. It is not that he is not used to it but it is freezing cold.

“When you are on the grass in short sleeves and shorts and a pair of boots players don’t want to stop training and don’t want to stop playing football, in fact we have to stop them and say you have done enough lads. ‘They say: “Lets have another 10-15 minutes.” That is what you get when you get out in the right climate.”

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