Former Premier League manager Sam Allardyce has said that Richarlison must improve on his performances to command a regular starting role with Everton. The Brazil international had an impressive debut season with the Toffees last term where he contributed 14 goals across all competitions.

Despite this, he has not made a fruitful start to the current campaign with a couple of average performances and one of those came against Watford over the weekend where he was substituted at the hour mark. Speaking after the game, Allardyce said that Richarlison has gone through periods of non-action on the playing field and manager Marco Silva was right to substitute the attacker.

He added that Richarlison needs to improve with the bigger challenge at the Toffees, who are aiming to make the push for the European places, he continued: “He has these spells of non-action or non-impact. Marco Silva’s not happy and I agree, he should demand more. When your spending so much on a player and you’re improving his wages, as a manger you say ‘you must start playing so much better than you used to’. ‘This football club has bought you to make us better and you must improve’.”

Richarlison had three attempts on goal against his former club and two of those were headed attempts, where he should have tested the goalkeeper at the least. Irrespective of this, the Toffees were on the winning side over the weekend after Bernard scored the only goal for the Hornets through a 10th-minute strike.

With the victory, the Merseyside outfit have registered four points from the opening two games and this sees them ninth on the league table. They are scheduled to face Aston Villa, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Bournemouth and Sheffield United over the next four gameweeks and a strong run could potentially see them break into the top four.