Selling and Replacing Lukaku isn”t so Simple

With the exception of Griezmann, Lukaku will probably sell for more than any other European forward this summer, if he goes. That would give us plenty of money to buy some top players in return. I imagine we could bring in a couple of decent players with any potential money from Lukaku and Niasse. Steve Walsh and Ronald Koeman should be aware of all top strikers across world football. Plus we will have our tv money. We should have a bit of a war chest if this all happens in the summer!

Bring in players who match his quality even if it means players like Ross have to sit the bench or move on. Anything else will result in Everton continuing to strive to remain a perennial contender for "best of the rest" honors.

Everton should of put a release fee of 㿨 million after two years into a five year contract. He would have been here five years then. This would have been fair on him.

If we are in the Champions League by then we have fulfilled his ambition. If not, he can go for a reasonable amount at the age of 25.

There's a lot of hysteria surrounding this and many of us are sounding desperate, we're sounding like the straw clutching spurs fans, prior to Bale moving to Madrid.

Is Lukaku ambitious? Yes. If we can't match his ambition with investment and success, he'll go elsewhere. He has no loyalty ties with the club and lets face it, some of the fans have been openly hostile to him. We have to get the best out of him whilst he's here. We have to plan for his departure and also plan to get the best price for him. Either that or give him the success via investment and improvement.

We have Valencia and Calvert-Lewin as current replacements and I am sure that we will buy someone in the summer. We have had 3 years out of him which is about the average for a Premier League foreign player anything more is a bonus.

It's a team game as Leicester proved last year, it's not about one or two superstars. Jim @3 above hit the nail on the head, modern football is like hunting in packs – not playing for the one guy up top.

I'd be sad to see him go but confident that, so long as Walsh and Koeman do their jobs well, we could come out stronger the other side in the way Spurs have post Gareth Bale.

Lukaku wants to see the club show their ambition but who could we bring in that would demonstrate that?

Most of us would say we definitely need a centre back but so do most of the clubs above us; it will be the same with the other positions that need strengthening.

We're going to have to splash the money early on and hopefully get the jump on other teams but it's going to be hard... I hope we can pull it off.

Just when I was starting to believe.

What was interesting was no better this season excepted than Cottee, Lineker or Beardsley.

So our reliance is not the weakness it may appear to be should he move on.

Lukaku has been our main striker for the last four years yet, in all that time, not one youth player has come close to being an adequate replacement. So that's more millions we'll have to spend on replacing him.

I wouldn't mind but if his replacement turns out to be any good in a few years from now we'll be looking for a replacement for him because no doubt he'll want to play in the Champions League, and we still won't have a replacement from our own youth teams.

We are the Lukaku Show right now. Good as the show is, there is always another, maybe better.

The other side of that is that the simple thing is to keep him. A player who STILL hasn't asked to leave.

He and Ross are the players we build around, not get rid of.

Midfielders score goals. Wingers score goals. Defenders score goals. The way I see it, if he leaves then it's a good opportunity to change the way we play so as not rely on him for goals – which is a style which has hitherto only got us no higher than 7th place.

In days gone by it always amused me to see strikers bought and fail. The owner/managers couldn't see the strike partnerships and so failed to buy the 2 players that made up the strike force. Okay, this is old shit but I think it isn't much different now.

Over to you Derek Thomas as you might be somewhat more analytical than me on this.

About time we refreshed our scouting team and decision making (Walsh alone can't cover the world) and we should be ready for any contingency and have players lined up, not make panic reactions.

We are short on forwards already, we should have at least 3 vying for the positions, not letting Lukaku strut around thinking he's indispensable.

We need some proper hitmen negotiators when dealing with transfers instead of fannying about hoping for the best like gullible fools.

What Lukaku offers for me is irreplaceable.

Pace, power, finishing with either foot is devastating (frustrates me the amount of so-called top players these days who are one footed).
But Lukaku is clinical with both feet.

I also believe his first touch and hold up play has improved immensely this season.

I see no replacement available that will join Everton not being in the Champions League.

We are not going to get Harry Kane or Sergio Aguero here and not going to get Robert Lewandowski or Suarez.

Dembele at Celtic, I'm sorry but he's not to Lukaku's standard, I'd fancy myself of scoring double figures in the Scottish League.

Its sad we have to accept Lukaku will leave, When you consider how badly Everton have struggled for prolific strikers over the years, we revered Big Dunc but in reality he was never really a top top striker that was capable of scoring 15 plus a season, Rooney wasn't here long enough, and the rest like Johnson, Beattie, Bent, nothing more than honest workers really.

There's only been Saha and Yakubu who had looked capable of being explosive and neither of those could do it consistently nor lead the line as well as Lukaku.

Its worth enjoying the final embers of a truly outstanding goalscorer again at Everton Football Club.

It could be a long time before we see one of that ilk again.

We seem to have been getting plenty of wins lately? Fishy!

But with European football, a pile of cash, a new stadium, youth players flooding into the first team squad, quality already added this season in Schneiderlin, Bolasie and Gana, and Barkley back on track and back in the England squad... we are in a much better position than last summer to attract the players we need.

I am pretty sure Sunderland will go down and Kone will trigger a release clause to join us early in the summer transfer window. OK - not a world beater but one piece of the jigsaw and will help us to build momentum

I remember being outraged when we part exchanged Howard Kendall for Bob Latchford. Latch healed the pain. Howard healed the pain.

I miss Steven Naismith, he embodies everything that is decent in this world. He wouldn't get a run-out once a season with us now. Having said that, I'd pop him on the bench for our next fixture. Cos he'd score. He just would.

Tom Davies, plus the mark two Ross Barkley, plus the new loud and assertive Joel Robles. Youngsters adding massive amounts of experience, understanding and craft.

Idrissa Gana Gueye. The EPL's most wise buy. We must never ever sell this midfield wizard. He is THREE men in a single jersey. He puts the ROYAL into our Blue. Alan Ball would love him.

He should also remember it was EFC that gave him a permanent deal when he was struggling. Think on, Rom.