The £17.5m wonderkid who could solve Everton's striker problem this Januaryplaceholder image
The £17.5m wonderkid who could solve Everton's striker problem this January | Getty Images
Bayern Munich and Inter Milan are among the clubs also chasing the 21-year-old
If David Moyes could have Everton closer to the Champions League than the relegation zone with two of the worst finishers in the Premier League as his striker options, imagine how well The Toffees could be doing with a functional front-man leading the line?
Since Romelu Lukaku left Merseyside, Everton have struggled to find a reliable goal-scorer to lead the line, and it’s not looking like that will change this season with Beto and Thierno Barry among their current, rather underwhelming options up top. It’s a familiar story for Toffees fans. The last dregs of Wayne Rooney scored 10 goals mostly from an attacking midfield or second striker role, then Gylfi Sigurdsson shared the award with Richarlison.
The Brazilian and Dominic Calvert-Lewin duopolised the award for the next three season though only broke 15 Premier League goals once, and Everton haven’t even had a player hit double-figures in the top flight since 2022, though that’s on the verge of changing thanks to what is likely Iliman Ndiaye’s last season in royal blue.
Franculino can emulate Lukaku impact on Merseyside
Franculino isn’t just a contender to be the new Lukaku because he could score lots of goals for Everton. Standing at 6’1”, he’s a physical presence and can score with both feet plus his head, and possessing underrated movement.
Lukaku is the butt of plenty of jokes now and his career at the highest level has somewhat sputtered out, but there was a reason he’s the fifth-highest scorer of all time in international football, is the second most expensive footballer ever was used to be constantly compared to Harry Kane.
He gave defenders nightmares in England for most of the 2010s and remains one of only 34 players to score 100 goals in the Premier League and while we’re not anointing Franculino as another player to join that prestigious club, he has that potential. Aged 21, he’s not come completely out of the blue having scored 22 Superliga goals in his two full seasons since moving from Benfica, where he never made a senior appearance.
Franculino has ranked in the top 6% of forwards for successful take-ons in the Europa League in each of the last two seasons, and is adept at both moving the ball up the field at his feet and finding space to receive a progressive. What really sets Franculino, who’s already scored for Guinea-Bissau and won 14 caps, apart though is his finishing.
You don’t score 14 goals in 14 league games by accident and he’s outperforming his Europa League expected goals (xG) tally by an absolutely outrageous +0.73… per full game. That’s an unsustainable amount and based on a small sample but even domestically Franculino’s proven his credentials as a potentially world class finisher.
His goals minus xG figure stands at +0.42 per full game according to FotMob which is phenomenal - it’s almost double the highest Premier League player from last season (Matheus Cunha) while this campaign Erling Haaland is averaging +0.28.
Only seven players in Europe have scored more prolifically than Franculino this season and while it’s not realistic to expect the Bissau-Guinean to immediately transfer this output to the Premier League, if he could convert at just 25% or 10% of his current rate he’d be a better option than Beto or Barry straight away.
Can Everton fight off competition from across Europe?
As you’d imagine, this kind of production hasn’t gone unnoticed around Europe. Midtjylland sporting director Kristian Bach Bak told Sport Witness he’s already looking for a Franculino replacement after Danish outlet Bold reported Everton, Bayern Munich and Inter Milan are all watching Beto’s international teammate.
The 21-year-old won’t come cheap either, with Everton News’ George Bailey pricing him at £40 million, but The Toffees were in the market for two strikers this summer and only landed Barry - who never put up anything like Franculino’s output at his previous club, Villarreal.
Moyes can point to Ndiaye as evidence that he still has the magic to turn a player into an elite attacker, wanted by Europe’s best. Rather than rotting away behind Kane or Lautaro Martinez, Everton can offer Franculino guaranteed Premier League game-time and in return the 21-year-old be the best striker The Toffees have had since Lukaku’s departure in 2018.
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