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Romelu Lukaku

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And people want martinez sacked and he was very influential in bringing Europe's prized asset to everton.

If lukaku was to leave it would be at the hands of his agent and I get the feeling he's in his ear about it. Everton know what they've got to do and champions league qualification is goal for next season. If it's not, then goodbye John stones and goodbye to Romelu Lukaku
 
Hmmm. Looks to be off for me. I've bolded the paragraph near the bottom.

http://www.theguardian.com/football...ukaku-goodison-goals-arsenal?CMP=share_btn_tw

Everton’s Romelu Lukaku: ‘I can see an image clearly like on a camera’
The striker who transformed the mood at Goodison Park with his two FA Cup goals against his former club Chelsea now has Arsenal in his sights as Everton seek to rescue an underperforming season


‘It took me until the Wednesday to forget about the game. It was days and days of thinking: ‘How? How? How?’ says Romelu Lukaku on the capitulation against West Ham.

Saturday 19 March 2016 09.30 AEDT

Romelu Lukaku relives that barnstorming moment against Chelsea in photographic detail, providing a frame-by-frame account of the goal that illuminated last Saturday’s FA Cup quarter-final and brought the billionaire Farhad Moshiri the first return on his investment in Everton.

“When I got the ball from Ross [Barkley] I thought he’d get back into the box but I looked up and he was not there,” the Belgium international begins. Methodically, and in more time than it took to shrug aside César Azpilicueta, evade Branislav Ivanovic’s tackle, step inside Mikel John Obi, twist Gary Cahill one way then another and find Thibaut Courtois’s bottom corner, Lukaku then explains the thought process behind his 24th goal of a season that has seen him blossom as a centre-forward. It was not fuelled by anger, something Alan Shearer suggested in analysis that the striker needs more of. “If I’m angry then it’s difficult to play,” he responds. It was intelligence.

“I know what I’m doing,” the 22-year-old continues. “I can see an image clearly like on a camera. You can see I’m looking back to see where the other guys are but at the same time I see Azpilicueta behind me, Ivanovic just inside, Cahill here, Mikel here, so I thought: ‘Let me just try and see’, and then it’s about determination and skill. I always play with my head up because I take pictures and think how to get between them. When I am coming in on the goalkeeper, I always look twice at where he is and then focus on the ball.”

Lukaku’s 24th and 25th goals of the campaign brought not only Wembley into focus for Everton but the contrast between the rate of his development and that of Roberto Martínez’s team. “Two years of underperforming,” as Everton’s leading goalscorer in a Premier League season, 18 so far, describes results. Their relationship has entered a defining, delicate phase.

Everton have 10 Premier League matches and at least one FA Cup tie to resurrect their fortunes, starting with Saturday’s visit of Arsenal to a Goodison Park transformed by Lukaku’s brace against his former club. It could have been much different. “That win has changed a lot of things here,” he insists. “If we had lost to Chelsea as well as West Ham the week before I think you would have had the fans down here at the training ground.”

Lukaku rated his performance against Chelsea as an eight out of 10, “maybe an eight and a half”. The best season of his career, one he believes must be “the base, and from here I don’t look back”, has not produced perfection. “A couple of nines, but not a 10,” he adds. “Against Southampton away, Liverpool at home, Sunderland at home. Not Manchester City in the League Cup, though – I was absolute rubbish.”


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After a brilliant mazy run Romelu Lukaku strikes the first of his two goals in Everton’s FA Cup quarter-final victory against his old side Chelsea. Photograph: Matt West/BPI/Rex/Shutterstock
Those high points, and the consistency that has made Lukaku the first Everton striker since Graeme Sharp to score more than 20 goals in successive seasons, have not been enough to put Martínez’s team in contention for Champions League qualification. A legitimate target, their leading scorer concedes. “With all the qualities that we have, we should at least have been in the top four this year because of how the league is,” he states.

“We should have been in the top four. It was meant to be. I am always looking for more. The club thinks that way as well.” Yet Everton are 12th before Arsenal’s visit, having lost seven league games at Goodison this term. The last, a 3-2 defeat by West Ham United, after leading 2-0 with 10 men and 12 minutes to go, was symptomatic of the campaign.

“It is going to be a good game against Arsenal,” he predicts. “You’ve got a team who want to prove themselves and we need to start performing. I’ve been saying it for weeks – we’ve been underperforming this season. You don’t need to lie, that’s the truth. It took me until the Wednesday to forget about the West Ham game. It was days and days of thinking: ‘How? How? How?’ Even with 10 men, if you are 2-0 up at home you should always win the game. I went home that night and didn’t talk to anyone. I just sat down and thought about the game. That’s why I don’t like having only one game a week. I’d rather have many more games and less time to think about them. I look around the dressing room and wonder how the hell are we in this position? The simple games we need to win – we draw or we lose. The difficult games we need to win – we win. Where’s the logic in that?

“Everybody has improved, Ross has improved, but results? It has been two years of underperforming. As bad as that sounds, it is the truth. Look at the players we have. We have 10 games to go, the semi-final of the Cup – just go for it, boys! We need to start winning games because we cannot continue like we are now. Everyone gives stick to the manager but it is the players who do the job on the pitch.”

The obvious frustration raises questions over Lukaku’s future beyond this summer, with several Champions League clubs across Europe interested. The striker skirts around the subject. “That’s looking far ahead and I don’t want to do that,” he insists. Later, however, he says: “I’m 23 this summer. I have been playing [professionally] since I was 16 and never had a taste of the Champions League. It is going to be seven years. You think about it.

Moshiri, the British-Iranian businessman who has acquired an initial 49.9% stake in Everton, said he is “committed to providing additional funds for transfers and retaining our key players”. Strangely, given his attendance at Goodison last Saturday, Everton’s new major shareholder has not outlined his ambitions to Lukaku. “I’ve never met him but I would like to,” he says. It is Mino Raiola, the striker’s agent, who is currently dealing with the future.

“If something happens, it will be for the good of the club,” states the affable Lukaku. “I don’t want to leave in a fight, if it happens. I won’t say this or that, it is going to be good for me personally and for the club. They were the ones who believed in me at a time when nobody believed in me and they gave me a platform to perform. I have tried to repay them by doing good performances, but I have an agent who deals with the interest. I do not want to be bothered with it. I just want to play my football.

“I have an open relationship with the manager. I will be honest enough with him to say what I think. But we have 10 more games to go and we are not at that point yet. We can turn it around and I will give everything to turn it around. If I didn’t then I wouldn’t care about the game against Chelsea.

“I will do everything to take my team forward to glory. Now we are almost there. But in the league, we have to play better. We have 10 games left. Everything is open now.”
 
Hmmm. Looks to be off for me. I've bolded the paragraph near the bottom.

http://www.theguardian.com/football...ukaku-goodison-goals-arsenal?CMP=share_btn_tw

Everton’s Romelu Lukaku: ‘I can see an image clearly like on a camera’
The striker who transformed the mood at Goodison Park with his two FA Cup goals against his former club Chelsea now has Arsenal in his sights as Everton seek to rescue an underperforming season


‘It took me until the Wednesday to forget about the game. It was days and days of thinking: ‘How? How? How?’ says Romelu Lukaku on the capitulation against West Ham.

Saturday 19 March 2016 09.30 AEDT

Romelu Lukaku relives that barnstorming moment against Chelsea in photographic detail, providing a frame-by-frame account of the goal that illuminated last Saturday’s FA Cup quarter-final and brought the billionaire Farhad Moshiri the first return on his investment in Everton.

“When I got the ball from Ross [Barkley] I thought he’d get back into the box but I looked up and he was not there,” the Belgium international begins. Methodically, and in more time than it took to shrug aside César Azpilicueta, evade Branislav Ivanovic’s tackle, step inside Mikel John Obi, twist Gary Cahill one way then another and find Thibaut Courtois’s bottom corner, Lukaku then explains the thought process behind his 24th goal of a season that has seen him blossom as a centre-forward. It was not fuelled by anger, something Alan Shearer suggested in analysis that the striker needs more of. “If I’m angry then it’s difficult to play,” he responds. It was intelligence.

“I know what I’m doing,” the 22-year-old continues. “I can see an image clearly like on a camera. You can see I’m looking back to see where the other guys are but at the same time I see Azpilicueta behind me, Ivanovic just inside, Cahill here, Mikel here, so I thought: ‘Let me just try and see’, and then it’s about determination and skill. I always play with my head up because I take pictures and think how to get between them. When I am coming in on the goalkeeper, I always look twice at where he is and then focus on the ball.”

Lukaku’s 24th and 25th goals of the campaign brought not only Wembley into focus for Everton but the contrast between the rate of his development and that of Roberto Martínez’s team. “Two years of underperforming,” as Everton’s leading goalscorer in a Premier League season, 18 so far, describes results. Their relationship has entered a defining, delicate phase.

Everton have 10 Premier League matches and at least one FA Cup tie to resurrect their fortunes, starting with Saturday’s visit of Arsenal to a Goodison Park transformed by Lukaku’s brace against his former club. It could have been much different. “That win has changed a lot of things here,” he insists. “If we had lost to Chelsea as well as West Ham the week before I think you would have had the fans down here at the training ground.”

Lukaku rated his performance against Chelsea as an eight out of 10, “maybe an eight and a half”. The best season of his career, one he believes must be “the base, and from here I don’t look back”, has not produced perfection. “A couple of nines, but not a 10,” he adds. “Against Southampton away, Liverpool at home, Sunderland at home. Not Manchester City in the League Cup, though – I was absolute rubbish.”


FacebookTwitterPinterest
After a brilliant mazy run Romelu Lukaku strikes the first of his two goals in Everton’s FA Cup quarter-final victory against his old side Chelsea. Photograph: Matt West/BPI/Rex/Shutterstock
Those high points, and the consistency that has made Lukaku the first Everton striker since Graeme Sharp to score more than 20 goals in successive seasons, have not been enough to put Martínez’s team in contention for Champions League qualification. A legitimate target, their leading scorer concedes. “With all the qualities that we have, we should at least have been in the top four this year because of how the league is,” he states.

“We should have been in the top four. It was meant to be. I am always looking for more. The club thinks that way as well.” Yet Everton are 12th before Arsenal’s visit, having lost seven league games at Goodison this term. The last, a 3-2 defeat by West Ham United, after leading 2-0 with 10 men and 12 minutes to go, was symptomatic of the campaign.

“It is going to be a good game against Arsenal,” he predicts. “You’ve got a team who want to prove themselves and we need to start performing. I’ve been saying it for weeks – we’ve been underperforming this season. You don’t need to lie, that’s the truth. It took me until the Wednesday to forget about the West Ham game. It was days and days of thinking: ‘How? How? How?’ Even with 10 men, if you are 2-0 up at home you should always win the game. I went home that night and didn’t talk to anyone. I just sat down and thought about the game. That’s why I don’t like having only one game a week. I’d rather have many more games and less time to think about them. I look around the dressing room and wonder how the hell are we in this position? The simple games we need to win – we draw or we lose. The difficult games we need to win – we win. Where’s the logic in that?

“Everybody has improved, Ross has improved, but results? It has been two years of underperforming. As bad as that sounds, it is the truth. Look at the players we have. We have 10 games to go, the semi-final of the Cup – just go for it, boys! We need to start winning games because we cannot continue like we are now. Everyone gives stick to the manager but it is the players who do the job on the pitch.”

The obvious frustration raises questions over Lukaku’s future beyond this summer, with several Champions League clubs across Europe interested. The striker skirts around the subject. “That’s looking far ahead and I don’t want to do that,” he insists. Later, however, he says: “I’m 23 this summer. I have been playing [professionally] since I was 16 and never had a taste of the Champions League. It is going to be seven years. You think about it.

Moshiri, the British-Iranian businessman who has acquired an initial 49.9% stake in Everton, said he is “committed to providing additional funds for transfers and retaining our key players”. Strangely, given his attendance at Goodison last Saturday, Everton’s new major shareholder has not outlined his ambitions to Lukaku. “I’ve never met him but I would like to,” he says. It is Mino Raiola, the striker’s agent, who is currently dealing with the future.

“If something happens, it will be for the good of the club,” states the affable Lukaku. “I don’t want to leave in a fight, if it happens. I won’t say this or that, it is going to be good for me personally and for the club. They were the ones who believed in me at a time when nobody believed in me and they gave me a platform to perform. I have tried to repay them by doing good performances, but I have an agent who deals with the interest. I do not want to be bothered with it. I just want to play my football.

“I have an open relationship with the manager. I will be honest enough with him to say what I think. But we have 10 more games to go and we are not at that point yet. We can turn it around and I will give everything to turn it around. If I didn’t then I wouldn’t care about the game against Chelsea.

“I will do everything to take my team forward to glory. Now we are almost there. But in the league, we have to play better. We have 10 games left. Everything is open now.”
very honest and interesting article.
 

"I'm 23 this summer... and I've never had a taste of the Champions League"

God, reading that makes me feel both old, and like a failure.

Hope Rom stays with us for long enough to see whether we can reward him under the Moshiri regime, but he is so good that he can really play for any club he pleases.
 
accept nothing less than 65m and to a top, top team.

If they don't bid it, keep him and sign players to match what he wants.

Just go hell for leather for champions league.
 
I wouldn't begrudge him moving to a Champions League team, providing they don't play in England and we get top £££ for him. I said at the start of the season we'll struggle to keep him unless we get CL.
Amd always likely that players, if they are considering moving on, want to do it straight after a tournament like the Euro's since then they have a settling in period at their new club before having to worry about being chosen for their national team's World Cup squad.

If he does go though he won't be a tit about it, he clearly appreciates his time here and Martinez's faith in him.
 

Would a Bayern or PSG pay that? Which top club in the CL next year would?
whatever team wants a goal scorer, who will score goals at any level.

One who is the best of his age, and in a few years has the potential to be the best striker in the world with the right players around him.
 
whatever team wants a goal scorer, who will score goals at any level.

One who is the best of his age, and in a few years has the potential to be the best striker in the world with the right players around him.
I was implying, if not Bayern who it was rumoured are interested, would he go to France?
Who else would pay that?
Man Utd are rubbish and won't be in CL. Arsenal going to pay that? Juventus? There are few that will pay so much that need a striker.
 
Would a Bayern or PSG pay that? Which top club in the CL next year would?
PSG paid 50m for David Luiz two years ago...and they need a good striker since Ibra will be leaving and Cavani hasn't really shown he is of the same quality.

Agent has links there iirc, Rom speaks the language fluently and we wouldn't have to face him in the league...will be very surprised if they don't at least make an offer.
 
PSG paid 50m for David Luiz two years ago...and they need a good striker since Ibra will be leaving and Cavani hasn't really shown he is of the same quality.

Agent has links there iirc, Rom speaks the language fluently and we wouldn't have to face him in the league...will be very surprised if they don't at least make an offer.
Step down in League. Big decision for him.
 

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