LETHAL LUKAKU FIRING ON ALL CYLINDERS
AFTER Everton’s 6-3 win over Bournemouth last weekend, sometimes making sense of what you witness is an impossibility. Was it all about Bournemouth incompetence or the brute brilliance of Romelu Lukaku?
Both, perhaps, as an unfathomable afternoon ended with nine goals – four of them scored by Lukaku – and Eddie Howe left picking apart more defensive wreckage.
Three down at half-time, defensive responsibility was absent in the Bournemouth ranks.
They looked like a team who refuse to do the dirty work, too focused on neat and tidy midfield play.
But then, 17-goal Lukaku is a phenomenon and this was his second hat-trick of a prolific campaign. “World-class,” was Ronald Koeman’s assessment. On this evidence, there can be no argument.
Asleep from the off, Bournemouth over-confidently overplayed, Dan Gosling the culprit, and from his slack pass Morgan Schneiderlin had Everton motoring.
Schneiderlin to Lukaku. Lukaku to James McCarthy. McCarthy to Lukaku. A shift inside and an exquisite curled effort past Artur Boruc – 30 seconds in.
Barely anybody in red and black had moved. Everton at their snapping best, Bournemouth at their dozing worst. The second fastest goal of the season.
Later in the game when Lukaku chipped Boruc, he showed just how confident he is right now.
“He’s a world-class striker,” Koeman said.
“He’s improving, but it’s big quality that he’s showing every day. I have the pleasure every day to stay and to be on the pitch when he’s finishing in training.”
It was as recently as December 22, that Lukaku’s agent, Mino Raiola, said: “If Romelu is good enough, strong enough, to move in the next year then we will talk to Everton about it. We will see in the summer what happens and how the situation is.”
Lukaku’s barnstorming performance against Bournemouth was further evidence that Koeman cannot, under any circumstances, lose his 23-year old frontman.
Not only did Lukaku score four – moving to the summit of the Premier League top goalscorer chart – but he also set up McCarthy for Everton’s second.
Factor in that he has played every single minute of Everton’s last 20 matches, and his extraordinary value to the club begins to become clear.
“He’s one of the best around,” nodded Koeman after the match. Everton must make sure they match his ambition going forward.
Lukaku’s third Premier League hat-trick – which was also, coincidentally, the 300th in the history of the Premier League – has inched him closer to an Everton record.
The Belgian now has 59 topflight goals for Everton, one behind Duncan Ferguson. And he’s still only 23. – Daily Mail