It’s fair to say that since joining Everton in the January of 2018, Cenk Tosun’s career hasn’t quite taken off at Goodison Park.
The Turkey international signed for Beşiktaş earlier this year when the club were struggling in front of goal and were desperately needing a finisher.
His fee of £27m was quite sizeable and naturally this put a fair amount of pressure on him to perform. He had an indifferent first few months at Goodison Park, scoring five Premier League in 14 appearances, but fans thought that he would come good this season.
So far this term, the Turk hasn’t yet hit his straps, managing one goal in seven appearances in the league. This has left fans waiting for when the player will start to deliver. In these times, where supporters are slowly growing impatient, they can draw inspiration from other players that have stuttered at their new club, with Nicolas Anelka being a prime example of this.
The mercurial Frenchman joined Avram Grant’s Chelsea in the January of 2008, but endured a tough first half of the season at Stamford Bridge. The striker only managed to score one goal in 14 games for The Blues in the league, and his season culminated with him missing the final penalty in the Champions League final loss to Man United.
However, he bounced back the next season by winning the Golden Boot in the league. The following season, alongside Didier Drogba, she spearheaded an attack that secured the league and FA Cup double.
Things were not going too well for him at one point, but he persevered through his lean spell at the beginning to have a hugely successful spell at the London club, scoring 59 goals in 184 appearances.
Tosun can find encouragement from Anelka’s career, as both players are stylistically comparable. Both are natural finishers that want to be a focal point in an attack. However, Anelka was able to forge a partnership with Drogba that would help define his spell at Chelsea. Perhaps Everton should look to do the same in order to generate the same amount of success from Tosun that The Blues managed with the Frenchman.
Ultimately, this is an example of why neither Everton fans or Tosun himself should worry about his fairly barren spell, as it has happened before and will happen again, and there is proof that you will eventually break out of your rut.
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