Fred?

Clubs (like Arsenal, Everton, Celtic and Middlesboro) that need a striker, take note.

Brazilian Fred, pronounced “freeetji”, has been lighting up the Brazilian league.

The prolific 22 year old plays for Brazilian club Cruzeiro where he's scored 35 goals in his last 35 matches. 17 of those came in a span of 11 games.

This is Cruzeiro’s biggest prospect since Ronaldo who was swooped up after just his first season at the club by PSV Eindhoven.

Fred’s full name is Frederico Chaves Guedes. His playing name, like so many other Brazilians is a single name substitute, but doesn’t quite have the zing to it yet, does it. Maybe spell it with a phonetic pronunciation. When you hear it in Portuguese it sounds different but I can see the odd stare in a Premiership program with someone thinking to themselves "Fred Something, but single named Fred?”. The first thing that came to my mind was Fred Flinstone, 35 goals in 35 Premiership matches would change that.

Not playing in the big cities like Sao Paolo and Rio De Janeiro, Fred has not gotten a lot of attention. For his previous club America-MG, he scored 34 in 57 matches. He’s only played a total of 43 for Cruzeiro so far and has already equaled that total.

He’s scored 68 goals in 100 matches. That’s consistent productivity.

His goalscoring touch is immaculate. He has this habit of hitting the bottom inside of the post a lot and the ball ricocheting in. Whether by coincidence, I don’t know. Didn't seem like it, they were spiffy goals.

Fred has patience too. Often waits and waits, even backs off, with an eye for headers a defender can't reach to turn to goal with the foot. At about 6’ 2” (185cm) can head as well.

He reminds me a lot of (at one time) prolific Brazilian goalscorer Mario Jardel or a bit of Freddy Kanoute. The only thing I have seen lacking is a bit of pace. Remember when Tottenham signed Helder Postiga and you could see immediately that he wasn’t nearly quick enough for England? He's quicker than that, but more recently Kezman?

The same could happen to Fred, but he has a much better shot on goal than either one of those players. And Kezman did get some easy chances, from what I saw, this Brazilian would have buried them and kept a place at Chelsea.

It appears Monaco in France made a 3 million pound offer a while back which was rejected. Cruzeiro apparently wants 6-7 million pounds (from clubs like Arsenal, Everton, Celtic and Middlesboro) .