In just a few matches, Carlos Espi has already shown Real Madrid what it is like to have a 6’4 behemoth leading your offensive line.
It has been a while since the club has had a profile like him on a permanent basis — the last player to have been at the club with such a strong presence was Joselu, who was only there for one season.
Espi has now come in from Levante for just 25 million euros, and has replaced an out-going, 40 million euro striker in Gonzalo Garcia.
Buying Carlos Espi after selling Gonzalo Garcia was incredible business
Garcia may be a better football player at the moment, but selling him for that price, keeping 30% of his rights, while effectively getting a striker more suited to their needs in terms of physicality and aerial presence for 15 million euros less, is incredible business.
Garcia wasn’t the tallest, but he always used to score headers for the team. However, with Espi, it is different. Rather than using his intelligence to win headers to score inside the box, Espi uses them at all possible opportunities.
The Spanish striker’s tall, physical presence not only helps the team inside the box when it is time to score, but it will also help them when the player is deployed as a target man, and they want an outlet to be able to evade the press from opposition.
Espi is also well-equipped to use his presence to be a brilliant player to link up with others. There have been many instances where he has headed the ball down for his shorter teammates to latch on to, and it has worked well so far.
The Spanish striker has chipped in with two good goals in these friendlies, and will undoubtedly want to do more of that when the season starts, but it is the obvious qualities and stylistic tendencies he has that made him such a perfect player for Real Madrid.
As good as Gonzalo was, he was never going to be the pure target man that Real Madrid want Espi to be, and it will be interesting to see how the team functions with him on the pitch.
The Spanish striker is also very young, which leaves him with a lot of time and room to develop into the kind of striker Jose Mourinho would want. The pre-season has been hugely successful for Espi, and he would hope that this run lasts forever.
Add us as a preferred source on Google