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Lukaku: Everton players’ relationship with Martinez was “broken” via Royal Blue Mersey

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Belgian also confirms his plans to leave Everton this summer

Romelu Lukaku has once again confirmed he intends to leave Everton this summer, while also revealing the relationship between Roberto Martinez and his players was "broken" in the final few months of the Spaniard's tenure.

Lukaku hasn't been particularly subtle when it comes to discussing his Everton future. The Belgian has made is clear for months now that he is ready to leave the club and his desire to win trophies and play in the Champions League.

Despite that claim the 23-year-old has also refused to rule out a return to Chelsea, who won't be in the Champions League next season.

His latest comments, while on international duty with Belgium, also shine a light onto the uncomfortable final few weeks of Martinez's tenure at Goodison Park.

Martinez was sacked after a run of just one win in 10 games ensured the club would finish in the bottom half for a second successive season.

The limp, lifeless performances from the players in those final few games suggested Martinez had indeed 'lost' the dressing room, something seemingly confirmed by Lukaku:

“The team did not perform at all. We won two of our last 11 games. When things are broken between the manager and the players it become difficult."

When speaking about his own future Lukaku appeared to confirm a deal had been all but done, but wouldn't elaborate much further:

“In my head I know where I want to go but I’m keeping that to myself.

“You will know when it is concluded. I have to make a good choice but in my head that has happened already.

“I have played there for five years now, it’s my league. But there are other nice clubs. I follow Spanish and German football and I also have something for the Italian league.

“Wherever I go I want to win prizes. During Leicester’s title ceremony I was standing just 10 metres from the trophy. I just stared at it for two minutes, forgetting to get on with the warm-up. I thought to myself, I want that."

While the majority of the fans respect and understand Lukaku's desire to move on he could certainly do so without being so vocal about it.

Constantly talking to the media isn't going to force through his move any quicker amd will only serve to tarnish the final few weeks of his Everton career.

The task for Everton now is to receive as much cash as possible from Lukaku's sale and plough it into a world-class replacement.


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New favourite in Everton manager hunt as club plan to open talks via Royal Blue Mersey

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Emery is the new bookies' favourite for the Toffees jon

Everton's hunt for a new manager has taken a fresh twist with reports that the club are set to open talks with Sevilla boss Unai Emery this week.

The Daily Telegraph reports that Everton hope to talk to Emery in the next 72 hours in order to establish whether he is interested in succeeding Roberto Martinez at Goodison Park.

The former Valencia and Spartak Moscow boss has previously spoken of his desire to manage in the Premier League and can speak English.

He was linked with a move to West Ham last summer before Slaven Bilic replaced Sam Allardyce at Upton Park.

Emery has been a huge success at Sevilla, winning three successive Europa League titles, most recently last week's 3-1 win against Liverpool in Basel.

The 44-year-old also guided the club to two successive fifth place finishes in La Liga in his first two seasons in charge before a seventh place finish this campaign.

The news has seen Emery become the new favourite for the top job at Goodison Park ahead of Frank de Boer, Manuel Pellegrini, Ronald Koeman and David Moyes.


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We Need to Talk About Romelu via Everton Arent We

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“Romelu likes to speak. He is a young boy and he likes to speak.”
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At the time, this quote from Mourinho seemed like a swipe at a player criticising Chelsea’s loan system. It’s fair to say Mourinho has got a few things wrong over the past few years, this was not one of them. Lukaku’s departure from Everton has seemed like a forgone conclusion for months, however that has not quelled the reaction to his very public attempts to depart. There have been issues and failings on both sides that make his departure all the more imminent, so there will be no need for a poison pen letter here.

There is a right way and a wrong way to go about departing from a football club. Take Marouane Felliani for example, once David Moyes had left for Manchester United, it seemed a forgone conclusion that he and/or Leighton Baines would join him. While Fellaini himself was no beacon of virtue, once stating his desire to leave in a Belgian newspaper a year earlier, his actual departure was rather smooth. Felliani discussed his desire to leave with the newly appointed Roberto Martinez privately and he left when an acceptable bid was made. He left, for a very hefty sum, to play in the Champions League with the then-champions of England, fair enough.

Alternatively is another of Lukaku’s Belgian compatriots, Eden Hazard. His departure from Lille was probably one of the most prolonged, fame-hungry pantomimes that I can remember in recent history. It eventually culminated with Hazard himself announcing on Twitter the club that he had chosen to join. Evidently, Lukaku is rather more inclined towards the Eden Hazard way of thinking.

We forget that very few players in the modern game have allegiances to the club that employs them. Romelu Lukaku is obviously a very ambitious young man, when he arrived at Everton he was sold a dream that within three years the club would be playing Champions League football. That has not materialised. The Belgian has demonstrated that he has the ability to play at that level, albeit not on a consistent basis, and he now feels ready to achieve his goals. Everton have not held up their end of the bargain and he sees his future elsewhere, there is no problem with that. If this was the end of it, then few Evertonians would find themselves able to argue against his departure, but unfortunately it wasn’t the end of it. The problem comes with the pantomime that Lukaku has created surrounding his future.

Persistent claims from Roger Lukaku, his father, that Romelu should leave Everton behind have not gone down all too well with Evertonians. Neither have Romelu’s own comments that his own lack of form was down to the underperformance of others. No matter how much truth either of these statements actually have, it doesn’t take a PR expert to understand the backlash they would create. What makes matters worse is that many Evertonians would have wished Lukaku well if he was to leave Goodison this summer, if those statements hadn’t been made.

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While Lukaku has shown Everton a definite lack of respect in recent months, what must be made clear is that the club are not blameless either. As mentioned above, Everton made assurances to Lukaku when he joined permanently, that he would be able to achieve his ambitions at Goodison Park. It’s fair to say that with two 11th place finishes, that has not been the case. There seems to be no love lost between Everton and Romelu Lukaku anymore, the sight of him sprinting to embrace Roberto Martinez after the 3-0 demolition of Arsenal couldn’t seem any further away. Lukaku has seen senior colleagues hung out to dry, Howard and Baines are two very different examples of this. Not forgetting that he himself was a victim, after both captain and manager blamed the 3-2 capitulation at home to West Ham solely on his penalty miss. Make no mistake that his downturn in form coincided with these events. Relationships and alienation are powerful factors in sport and they are two that should not be ignored in this case.

Another glaring failing was that Lukaku was not punished for his transgressions the first time he spoke out of turn while on international duty, or the second and so on…. Within a week Leighton Baines had been made to apologise for some very rational remarks, whereas Lukaku yet again went unpunished for stating his desire to leave at the end of the season. If the management fails to deal with the problem, can they really have many grievances when the problem persists?

However the arguments against his behaviour continue to stack up and for that he can only blame himself and those advising him. Earning his alleged £75,000 a week should be enough to see our star striker display some professionalism on and off the pitch. While Everton continue to hand over that sum of money, Lukaku is chatting about how he has already decided on his next club and how he glanced longingly at Leicester’s title win as Everton held him back. It might be fair for him to think these things in private, but his publicly frank assessments offer no respect to the club still paying his wages.

Another point still to be made will decide just how amicable, or messy, his departure from Everton will be. His choice of club will be where most Evertonians decide their stance on Lukaku. After his continued statements about Everton failing to fulfil his ambition and his desire to play in the Champions League, if he was to join Chelsea or Manchester United it would be a bitter pill to swallow. However if his choice was Bayern, Juventus or PSG then it would be a lot easier to stomach and few would argue against it.

There is no fault or blame here, problems and failings have amassed on both sides and finger pointing is an exercise in futility. One thing is for sure though, Romelu Lukaku will leave for a club-record fee. He will be missed at Everton for his ability, his potential, his ambition and his goals. However it is safe to say that his international interviews and the influence of Mino Raiola won’t be remembered quite as fondly.

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Rumour: Trio of Top Clubs Plotting John Stones bid via NSNO

Everton's John Stones is at the centre of a transfer battle between three of the richest clubs in Europe, according to The Daily Telegraph.
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Ronald Koeman set to snub Everton after positive talks over new Southampton deal via Daily Mail

The 53-year-old Dutchman will resist the lure of Everton and commit his future to the Saints. Koeman has broken Southampton's record Premier League points tally twice in two seasons.
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Everton 2015-16 Season in Review: Romelu Lukaku via Royal Blue Mersey

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A disappointing finish and an almost certain summer exit shouldn't overshadow yet another very productive season from the Belgian

As the summer transfer window moves ever closer, it's a safe bet that any and all headlines involving Romelu Lukaku will involve his repeatedly-stated desire to leave the club. Between this and the club's miserable end to the season, it would be perhaps understandable if thoughts of the big Belgian leave a bitter taste in the mouths of supporters.

This is a shame, because Lukaku is the best striker that Everton have had in a long, long time, and he is one of the best under-23 forwards in the world.

What he did well


By the traditional standards of offensive production, Lukaku was again a top forward in the English game:

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To add a bit of color to the analysis, we can look at Paul Riley's expected goals and expected assists numbers. [Skip this paragraph if you are familiar with xG and xA, or read Michael Caley's great explanation here. Expected goals and assists try to measure chance quality rather than outcome. One of the reasons this is valuable is because creation of chances is more repeatable statistically than conversion of chances. In other words, it's generally a better sign for the future if a player is creating or attempting lots of good chances rather than if that player is taking a bunch of bad chances and converting them at a very high rate. What's tricky is that if we only look at goals and assists, those two players can appear to be the same].

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With respect to Lukaku, it's a good sign that he shows up high on both lists. We can say with a bit of confidence that his performances this season was due more to repeatable attributes (skill, quality, etc.), than non-repeatable (luck, etc.). He also took a ton of shots (3rd in the league), and played a really impressive 3177 minutes.

What's really impressive is that he's been doing this for a few years now. Since Everton took him on loan at the start of the 2013-14 season, no other striker has played more minutes, and only Sergio Agüero has taken more shots and shots on target. Over that span, he is third in non-penalty goals and assists, behind Agüero and Olivier Giroud. It's extremely rare for a team like Everton to have a player for three seasons who can compete at this level and at this consistency. The fact that he just turned 23 is the icing on the cake; along with Harry Kane, Lukaku is a true young gem of a Premier League striker, simultaneously proven yet also full of potential.

What he could do better


It's fair to say that Rom disappeared somewhat down the stretch. Then again, so did the entire team. Really, it was bad. As I also noted above, the dude has played a ton of minutes and was basically asked to carry the side for long stretches. With that being said, at times it did seem like he was mentally drifting in and out of games and tactically he was often undisciplined. Again, though, it is very hard to disassociate this with the general disorganization of the team under Martinez.

Another point of contention has been his hold-up play and general ability to keep possession and link play, especially in transition. While he is certainly still prone to the 'ole lead boot every now and then, I actually thought he was much improved in this arena this season.

Below is a table of what could roughly be considered to be the best 10 strikers in the Premier League this season (minimum 50% of available minutes, sorted alphabetically). In terms of both dispossessions and passing accuracy, Lukaku was mostly on par with his peers (Jamie Vardy is a bit of an outlier here–though when you consider Leicester's unique system, it's not surprising that Vardy would almost never be dispossessed but also have a terrible pass%).

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If anything, I might knock Rom a bit for his lack of defensive contribution. Granted I'm not sure Martinez was really asking him to do any defending, but it was sometimes notable how little Lukaku was involved. Indeed, he registered some pretty measly interception and tackle numbers. (Obligatory caveat about defensive stats: they are extremely imperfect as a measure of how good a player is at defending, but they can at least be useful as a rough measure of how involved a player was in breaking up play. It's always worth keeping in mind with these numbers the tactical system the player was deployed in).

It would be interesting to see how Lukaku does in a system that asks more of him defensively. As of now, this side of his game is mostly untested.

The summer ahead


Lukaku should feature heavily for Belgium at this summer's European Championships. He has also made it abundantly clear that he has a desire to move on from the club in the upcoming transfer window. However, he is still under contract so Everton will rightly be demanding a massive transfer fee. Given his age and level of production, the club should look to sell at something in the £60-80 million range and reinvest those funds in replacements.

Final grade: A


If this is indeed the last season of Lukaku's Everton career, it's been a fitting cap to sterling three years. Rom is the kind of player whose mere presence on the teamsheet excites fans and terrorizes defenders. He's been fearless, feisty, and downright nasty. Whatever happens this summer, try to remember the good times.



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Rumour: Everton plotting audacious bid for Joe Hart via NSNO

Everton are ready to make a £40m move for Manchester City goalkeeper Joe Hart, according to media reports on Tuesday morning.
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