Everyone loves Brazilian footballers, but £50million for Richarlison is still absolutely crazy.
Marco Silva wanted his main man from his time at Watford and the board at Everton have duly obliged – but will likely have to break their transfer record to do so.
This is the second time Silva has signed the winger making his potential cumulative transfer total in England £60.5million.
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The world of football transfers has become a wildly inflated land ever since PSG made Neymar the world’s most expensive player.
But let’s put into context what on earth Everton were thinking when they sat down to assess how much money they should spend on Richarlison.
There’s no doubt the Brazilian impressed when he arrived to the Premier League last summer, scoring five goals in his first 12 Premier League games, but sadly from then it has all been downhill.
The 21-year-old hasn’t scored since November and since he bagged against West Ham early last season he has managed just two assists in the following 28 league games.
So to sum up Richarlison’s Watford career, he started with a bang and finished up with five goals and four assists in 41 games.
Enough to warrant the initial £35m let alone a possible £50m? Not in my book.
It’s also a huge outlay for a club not known for big spending and which already has Yannick Bolasie, Theo Walcott and Kevin Mirallas in the squad.
So what else could Everton have spent the £50m that was burning a hole in their pocket on?
Malcom
A Brazilian winger that has been coveted by a load of European heavyweights and openly wants to leave, sound familiar?
Fine, Barcelona haven’t registered their interest in Richarlison but they snatched Bordeaux’s 21-year-old flyer from right under Roma’s nose.
He only cost them £36.5million and the other advantage he has on Everton’s new man is he has actually delivered the numbers to back it up.
He’s scored 30 goals and provided 21 assists in 150 career games.
Jean Michael Seri
Keeping it local to the Premier League, Fulham pulled off one of the biggest coups of the summer by snagging the Nice midfielder.
The other parties interested included Arsenal, Liverpool and Barcelona but they might have been put off by the small issue that he can’t play football when it’s cold.
However, Seri is widely recognised as one of the best players in Ligue 1 over the past two years and Fulham signed him up for around £40million.
OK it might not be the exact same position but they could have swooped for Seri and had enough change for a takeaway on the way home.
Felipe Anderson
Brazilian, tick. Attacker, tick. Olympic gold medallist, tick. Cheaper than Richarlison, tick.
West Ham brought in Lazio’s creative spark for £36m which could rise to £41.5m.
But with that they’re getting a player who’s scored 34 goals in 177 games for Lazio and is coming off the back of a season where they came within a whisker of qualifying for the Champions League.
He was also in Brazil’s Olympic gold medal-winning squad in 2016.
Little bit older than Richarlison but entering his prime.
Xherdan Shaqiri
There’s nothing worse than watching your biggest rival getting a bargain in the transfer.
Liverpool added a World Cup star to their ranks for just £13m.
He’s 26 years old and can be a bit erratic but when Shaqiri is in the mood he resembles a left-footed Eden Hazard.
Could be even worse for the Toffees if he scores against them in the Merseyside Derby.
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