Sam Allardyce
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Allardyce admits striker is struggling

Sam Allardyce has admitted that £27m striker Cenk Tosun is struggling to adapt to life in the Premier League.

The striker has featured just three times for the Toffees since his big money move from Besiktas last month and has yet to open his goalscoring account. He was an unused substitute during the weekend’s fixture against Crystal Palace. And speaking after the game, Allardyce admitted that he is struggling, and needs to work on his fitness.

He said:

“He is struggling with the pace of the Premier League which happens to more players than it doesn’t who come in in January.

“It will be important for him to train really, really hard.

“When it is chucking it down with rain, it is not that he is not used to it, he is, but it’s freezing.

“There is no doubting his goal-scoring ability but you have to have the capabilities to get in those positions to score those goals and that is the hard bit.

“It is not unusual to see a centre-forward struggle when they first come we have seen many, many over the years do that.

“We have got to try and be patient and because the team is winning without him we can be patient at the moment.

“When we are safe and moving forward we will still try and finish as high up as we can but we will have an opportunity to put him on the pitch, the most important thing for me at the moment is securing our Premier League status and going from there.”

While Everton are a long way from being mathematically safe from relegation, results have improved significantly under Allardyce, who has led the, to just two points behind 7th placed Burnley.