Roberto Martinez is happy with Ramiro Funes Mori and how he is justifying his hefty fee.
After a rather drawn out process, Everton finally signed Mori from River Plate on September 1st for £9.5million, a club record fee for a centre back.
Despite the big money, there were many opinions on the move as to whether he could adapt to the fast-paced Premier League.
In his first few games, Mori played well as he tried to adapt to the English game despite being back-up to John Stones and Phil Jagielka.
But Mori has found himself forming an impressive partnership with Stones following a knee injury to captain Jagielka – who is likely to be back in the new year.
Martinez told the Liverpool Echo:
Centre-halves arriving into the new league need support and guidance and Ramiro was clearly thrown into the situation and John has helped him,
“We can’t wait to have our captain back but to see Ramiro enjoying his football and adapting so quickly to the English game is great.
He’s a starter for Argentina now and he’s still a very young man. It’s been a massive step forward in his career but that what we want and why we made such a huge investment.
Despite a lot of praise lavished on Romelu Lukaku and co. Martinez has been pleased with the development and professionalism of the young centre-back pairing.
Mori also partnered Phil Jagielka in the Merseyside derby in October and produced a very impressive individual performance. Although it was only his third Premier League appearance, he proved just how good he really is.
He also showed immense maturity. He was thrown in at the deep end in a massive derby, and he had to help out inexperienced Galloway and Browning.
Martinez said:
We’ve got a large amount of attacking threat but we’ve coped well when we had five defenders out.
Every day they push each other. They have developed a very strong partnership but we want Phil (Jagielka) back as soon as possible because we need to be as strong as we can and every individual is vital for that.
Does Mori deserve to keep his place when Jagielka returns from injury?
