Sorry but he has to be sold . Maybe not in need of the money but the club made a huge mistake in keeping Stones a player that wants out will be disruptive even if they don't mean to be.
Gone are the days when you kept put a dissenting player in the reserves or force them to play and expect them to perform to their highest potential. Players now a days at PL level are rich so have no fear as to their own finacial security. Gone are the days when you could retain aplayer even after their contract had come to an end and gone as are the days when a player had to see out his contract. The power is firmly in the players hands
Players will talk with each other and I suspect that Everton have made Stones a significant offer which possibly will be viewed by Lukaku as a slap in the face if it's anywhere near his level of pay after all he is the top scorer, told by the manger he is world class, subject to the clubs highest ever transfer fee and in reality forwards are always the top paid.
Everton are hoping a couple of clubs will get involved in a auction but not too sure they will
Your opening premise is wrong, and it leads the rest of the post to be as well.
He doesn't have to be sold. We don't need to financially at all, and if anything we benefit more from letting him rot in the reserves for a year than we would by caving in and selling under his value now.
The stature of the club is worth significantly more than £50m. We should stand firm and let every prospective signing know that not one player is bigger than the club, and if you come in to the squad to do a job, then you do that job and don't mouth off to the press, or this happens to you.
If I were Moshiri right now, there's absolutely no way I'd sanction the transfer for any fee below £65m, and even then not to a domestic rival. But unfortunately I have to acknowledge I'm
not Moshiri and there's no way of predicting how this will go.
Don't get me wrong, I don't
want Lukaku at the club, but because of the way he's handled himself and the situation we're in, overall I personally think the correct call is to play hardball with him and slap him down.