No pressure … but the next 10 weeks could define Landon Donovan on the global stage.

Donovan joined Everton of the English Premier League earlier this week, on loan from the Los Angeles Galaxy, and the ramifications are enormous.

For better or worse, unfairly or otherwise, Donovan’s career could turn on how he performs in maybe 6-10 matches with Everton.

Beginning, gulp, with a likely appearance (and possible start) on the road against Arsenal on Saturday at Emirates Stadium.

Considering how difficult it is to score in soccer, especially when you have just joined a side in the bottom half of the Premier League standings, and given the limited duration of the loan … Donovan has very little time to make an impression in the most-watched league in the world.

Rest assured, Landon knows what is at stake. He likely would say that whatever happens the next 10 weeks will not define him. Inside his own head, that is. He will still be the best attacking player in American soccer history and the most valuable player to Major League Soccer.

But this brief stretch very likely will define him to the generic global soccer fan. Particularly those in the English-speaking world. Because they all pay attention to the EPL.

If he can score a few goals, maybe set up a couple, and show himself dangerous in the attacking end … it could kill forever the fairly strange reputation that has attached itself to him of a guy who avoids high-level soccer and shrinks on the biggest of stages.

That reputation is based on a troika of limited information: 1) his failure to break through into the main team with Bayer Leverkusen of the Bundesliga (Germany) in the late 1990s, when he was a homesick teen; 2) his preference to leave Leverkusen, after he was called back during the winter break in early 2005, to sign with the Galaxy; 3) his failure to score at the 2006 World Cup when he was the leader of the U.S. offense but disappeared for stretches as opponents turned their focus on him.

Not much evidence there. Not many facts to work with. Even when we add in 10 weeks with Bayern Munich at this time a year ago — when he got limited time and didn’t score a goal.

But that was Germany. A different sort of soccer. As passionate, but very physical, often austere and still a bit anti-American in the sense that the league expects nothing from Yanks.

Now, he gets to England, where the game has opened up tremendously in the past two decades, where speed is critical and skills with the ball at your feet matter.

The caliber of play is higher than it is in Germany. But Donovan’s skill set would seem more suited to the English game than the German game. Something he suggested in an interview this week.

Donovan’s arrival has gotten him scads of attention, in England. When the Times of London is writing about you, as it did today, you are now officially on the radar of the EPL.

As The Times suggests, Donovan could start because Everton has been battered by injuries (Victor Anichebe and Louis Saha) and has another forward (Ayegbeni Yakubu) off at the African Cup of Nations. Everton also has had trouble scoring goals all season.

Arsenal is one of the great clubs in the world, and destroyed Everton, 6-1, on the Toffees’ home pitch, in the season-opening match. That defeat put Everton into something of a tailspin that it only now is coming out of.

The club needs a scorer. It has identified Landon Donovan as someone who can fill that role.

His arrival has been heralded. It has been noted. English fans know Donovan plays with David Beckham, in Los Angeles. They know he is supposed to score goals.

If he can over these next 10 weeks, his market value could explode. If he doesn’t, his reputation for not succeeding outside MLS could become set in stone.

And it all is based on such a limited time frame. Beginning Saturday, ending the third week of March.

I think Landon is ready to make a mark, and I think he will, if the soccer gods don’t conspire against him.

I am so confident he will do well … that I just tore up my EPL fantasy league roster to get Landon onto my team. (He is priced at 7.2 million pounds, the same price tag hung on Clint Dempsey and only 200,000 pounds behind Michael Ballack.)

I had to do a salary dump to make it happen, getting rid of two of Landon’s new Everton teammates (goalkeeper Tim Howard,  at 5.4 million, and defender Joseph Yobo, at 5.5 million), as well as Tottenham keeper Carlo Cudicini (4.4 million) … replacing them with Landon (7.2 million), Birmingham defender Scott Dann (4 million) and Portsmouth keeper Asmir Begovic (3.4 million). And Landon has gone into my first XI, ahead of Ballack.

Now we see how the great experiment turns out. All that’s at stake is the international reputation of America’s greatest player.