The Wonderkid Files: El Bilal Touré - The £23m gem ideal to boost Everton’s rejuvenation

Everton have been linked with plenty of young forwards this summer as they look to find the goals they so desperately lacked last season – and the latest of them is a very interesting young talent indeed, El Bilal Touré of Spanish outfit Almería.

The 21-year-old Malian is a deep-lying centre forward who never really hit his straps as a teenager in France with Reims but has impressed since moving to La Liga – and has been even better for his national side, scoring five in his first 15 games.

That may sound no better than average, and nor would his seven goals for Almería taken in isolation – but when you consider how many of those games have been as a substitute, and that he only started 15 games in Spain last year, you start to get a better sense of his finishing prowess. In total, he averages a shade under a goal every other full 90 minutes played, which is extremely good, especially when you consider how little time he actually spends in the box.

Preferring to pick the ball up about a third of the way to the opposing goal, Touré is a fine link-up player with impressive strength and a low centre of gravity, always looking to lay the ball off and bring other attacking players into the game. That he can score as well as play such a large role in the build-up makes him a rare player, and one who an attack could be built around.

It’s worth noting that he isn’t playing the kind of ‘quarter-back’ role that Harry Kane has developed for Spurs, and doesn’t have huge assist numbers and isn’t looking for killer passes. He isn’t the one playing final balls, he’s the one dropping between defence and midfield to offer passing options and drag defenders out of position, generating space for other players to make use of. He’s a great team player and always looks for ways to get his team-mates into the game – rather ironic considering he has named his idol as Cristiano Ronaldo.

Another way he differs from Ronaldo is that he’s very willing runner and will happily press all over the field of play – and while he isn’t a great tackler by any means and has plenty to learn in terms of his off-the-ball movement, he seldom shirks a challenge and is surprisingly effective in the air given that he only stands a shade over six foot tall.

It may say a lot about Touré as both a player and a man that, when he was coming through the ranks at Reims, he impressed his coaches by spending his first professional paycheques on home gym equipment instead of a car or anything flashy. That same attitude and quest for self-improvement was behind his swift rise through the national youth ranks, and he was part of the Malian Under-20 Africa Cup of Nations winning squad in 2019 at the age of just 17, eventually making his senior debut less than a week after his 18^th birthday – scoring in a 3-0 friendly win over Ghana.

Is he what Everton need? The numbers suggest a player who creates rather than scores (he generates over 2.5 shot creating actions a game), and that’s arguably a problem given how few goals the players who would surround him seem to have in them. On the other hand, there’s clearly a goalscorer in there – an xG of 0.43 per game from fewer than two shots tells the story of a dangerous finisher who could really rack up the goals if encouraged to get in to more dangerous areas. The ceiling for Touré is a dual-threat player who can cause havoc dropping deep and score plenty running into the box himself – but in the wrong team he could easily be creating chances for players who won’t put them away or standing in the box awaiting balls that never come. Without wishing to sound too cruel towards Everton, that was largely what they looked like last season.

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The Toffees also seems to have lost a march in the race to sign the young forward – Atalanta are also interested and the latest press reports suggest that the Malian prefers a move to Serie A. Sean Dyche may well have to turn elsewhere, once again, to get his man. But wherever he ends up, it will be hugely interesting to see how he develops – because he could easily become of the most exciting all-round attacking players the African game has produced in a long time.

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