Lukaku brace caps good night for international Blues

It makes me laugh that people complain about him so much and think we should sell him without any replacement sorted. To get a player with his goalscoring record, he would cost without doubt over 㿞m and not all players are guaranteed to score that much. Rom is.

We need to keep him.

But Dave's right. He sees his future elsewhere and there's little we can sensibly do about it.

However, the Echo fails to mention that Liverpool's wage bill is almost exactly TWICE Everton's but no mention of that. EFC are apparently 7th in the Prem, 㿔m behind Spurs in 6th place.

That's what it will take to keep him — Champions League football... simple as that. We would have to strengthen significantly in January to be in with any chance of making the top 4 and keeping Rom.

Koeman basically admitted it, that he was gone, with his last comments!

Let's start thinking about who we're getting to replace his goals. The options are very limited and people might appreciate how much of a goal machine Lukaku really is once he's gone!

I do agree he could score 30 goals though, because I think this is what he lives for... scoring goals!

Gray, Sharp, Heath and Steven at Everton. Costa, Hazard, Pedro and William at Chelsea. All chipped in with goals to be successful.

Successful sides need more than one player scoring goals, which won't happen while Rom is in the side. Why? He's not a team player.

Yes, we'll need a good centre forward to replace him but with a productive goalscoring midfielder or two, not to mention others with pace and the ability to effectively defend, we just might be better off when he goes.

And I'm not wishing he's gone... just facing the reality of what he, Lukaku, never shuts up about.

I bet you're a genuine Evertonian, Joe, who wants the best for our club; Lukaku wants what is best for Lukaku and good luck to him – as long as the fee we get for him is spent entirely on new players.

It's been rumoured he could be replaced with that fella from Napoli who so far had scored 1 goal this season, hardly prolific. As John@11 says, Rom is a goal machine and, unlike one-season wonders, he scores lots of goals every single season.

Gabbiadini is in and out of the Napoli team with a very poor goal return and not worth considering.

Rooney only stayed with us for two seasons before moving on to win trophies elsewhere. Lineker only stayed one season before his big move to Barca. Most top scoring strikers get picked up by the big money spending clubs which we haven't been since the Cottee signing.

To be honest, I'm delighted Rom has stayed with us this long and I think, if he stays fit he will break the 20-goal mark again this season.

I think his all-round game has improved where he is controlling the ball better and bringing others into the game better. He's level with Costa with 3 assists but, like someone said, he just doesn't have enough goalscorers from midfield making good runs in behind him. Deulofeu and Mirallas have been a huge disappointment so far this season and so that's why I can see Koeman bringing in more wingers or attack-minded players.

To be fair to Lineker, he was sold, he didn't ask to go. Like Everton in the past, we saw a big profit and cashed in. And Kendall thought he'd be getting the call to go and manage Barca so he was happy to sell Lineker.

Lineker himself says that Everton were a stronger outfit than Barcelona at that time but the Heysel ban meant we couldn't prove it in Europe.

I think we bought for 𧿘k then sold for ٟ.8M so a profit of ٟM. Leicester had a sell-on clause of 20% so they took 𧸠k from that transfer. I could be wrong of course

Mourinho, a top coach, knew he was a no-mark... get rid & just get other blues scoring as soon as possible & it will not be an ongoing debatable issue!!!

COYB – always!

Howard Kendall as reported in the Liverpool Echo:-

A year earlier, I had nearly gone to Spain as Barcelona manager. It was expected that Terry Venables would leave the club and I was recommended by him to be his successor.

I met a delegation from the Nou Camp in London and we agreed the terms of the move. Everton were kept informed of all the developments and the board agreed that my assistant, Colin Harvey, would succeed me.

The deal never happened. Terry decided to stay in Catalonia and I remained on Merseyside, where I led Everton to the League Championship again.

Although a move to Catalonia did not happen for me, for Gary Lineker the chance came. Barcelona had enquired about his availability towards the end of the ultimately disappointing 1985-86 season and a deal was agreed. He went with my blessing, because I don't think that you can stand in a player's way when a club like that comes calling.

Although he had scored so many goals I didn't think his departure would cause irreparable damage to our team. Indeed, to the contrary, I felt it might heighten the teamwork that had brought us such outstanding success a year earlier. As it happened, that was the case.

We agreed a deal before the World Cup, not knowing Gary would return as a national hero. Had we been able to foresee that we might have been able to inflate the ٠million asking fee by a million or two. Equally, had he endured a nightmare tournament I don't doubt that Barcelona might have dropped out of the deal.

I often get asked if the sale of Gary to Barcelona was linked to my possible arrival there as manager. I can unequivocally state that is not the case. The deals and the timeframes involved were completely different. In any case, I would never – under any circumstances – work against the interests of a football club I was managing to further my own as a manager elsewhere later on. That just wasn't the way I worked.

Kendall / Barcelona

Got to hold on to him? My arse. He is one of the main reasons we are dull as ditch water to watch.

This club needs an absolute bottoming. Somebody to come in with a huge fuck off broom and sweep out the deadwood. We have too many fans who are blown away by the mediocre and grateful to the semi-committed.

Hang on to him in the face of what? Despite hawking himself around Europe for the best part of two years, we have hardly been beating them off with a stick .

We should be demanding more from him, not falling over ourselves with gratitude because he "chooses" to stay.

You pick out general incidents that back up your arguement with regards to Lukaku, but I am just looking at him as a footballer, and his usual general performances.

He might be a star in the making because he will always score goals, but to be a lone striker, I just think that you should have ingredients that should suit the team.

Lukaku, for all his strength and size, very rarely acts as a buffer for the rest of the team, and I just feel that the performances of those around him might also improve if he really started getting hold of the ball?

He done it for 30 minutes against West Ham, and Everton looked a much better team, as they did at Burnley the week before that, in the second half when he also started getting hold of the ball.

Maybe the players around him are the problem? But I know if I was on the pitch playing with Romelu, that I wouldn't be wanting to gamble on running forward that much, simply because he doesn't get hold of the ball enough?

If I was scoring goals to save a team from relegation, I'd be thinking of moving too. Lukaku is never going to run around for 90 mins; he's more Latch than Lineker, but we can accept that if he consistently wins us points. What we can't have is 3/4 or 5 players thinking they can do the same.

In my opinion, we miss McCarthy's work rate more than we appreciate; he does all the running and tracking that never seems to emanate from Barkley, Mirallas, Deulofeu and even Bolasie.

We have a lot of talented players, but not a team, and unless Koeman can change the attitude (which he's being paid well for), then it's the same old story – lose the ball upfront and it's pressure on the defence in a heartbeat.

So please lay off Lukaku, and look at the 'alleged' creative players and ask, "If they aren't doing their job, how can Rom do his?"