Ronald Koeman will seek clarification on Romelu Lukaku’s contract situation from the Everton hierarchy next week having described the Belgium international as one of the finest finishers he has seen.
Everton have been in talks for several months over a new deal for the Premier League’s leading goalscorer with Lukaku’s agent, Mino Raiola, announcing before Christmas: “We have 99.9% reached terms.” Eight weeks on, and with Lukaku’s value to Everton continuing to rise, no agreement has been reached.
Raiola insisted on Thursday there were “no problems right now between the player and the club – he will sign”. Koeman, while happy to delegate contract business and transfer deals to the director of football, Steve Walsh, and the board, will request an explanation for the hold-up after Saturday’s Premier League visit to Middlesbrough.
“I don’t believe agents,” the Everton manager said. “I don’t know what is happening. I wouldn’t say anything now [to the board] but maybe after the weekend, yes. It’s no issue for now. Playing on Saturday is more important. It would be really good and important for the club, for the team and for me [should Lukaku sign] because it means we can keep the best players and he has seen a future in this club. That is really positive.”
Lukaku’s four-goal haul in the 6-3 victory over of Bournemouth last Saturday took him top of the scoring chart on 16 and second in Everton’s all-time list of Premier League goalscorers, one behind Duncan Ferguson’s total of 60. Ferguson’s tally came from 239 league appearances whereas Lukaku, who has two years remaining on his current contract, has reached 59 goals in 126 league outings for Everton.
Still only 23, the striker has a superior shooting accuracy this season – 64% – to Diego Costa, Alexis Sánchez, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Harry Kane. That aspect of his game, admits Koeman, would not look out of place alongside Marco van Basten, Romário and other great forwards from the Everton manager’s playing career, though he insists improvement is required elsewhere.
“He’s one of the best, even comparing him to the players in my time,” Koeman said. “He is world class in his finishing. He is that good but he needs to improve in a total picture of a player – but that part of him is world class. It is always a good ambition of a striker to be top scorer in the league. The four goals he scored will be a real boost for the player but sometimes you can focus too much on scoring. Focus on the team, focus on the job you need to do when we don’t have the ball and focus on your movements. We know if we give him the chances normally he will score the goals. That’s more important than to focus on scoring goals.”
Only Tottenham Hotspur have won more Premier League points in 2017 than Everton’s 13 but Koeman’s team remain seventh, five points behind Manchester United in sixth and seven points off Champions League qualification. Although refusing to look beyond Middlesbrough, the Everton manager believes a challenge to the top four is not inconceivable.
“Who is playing like a top-four team? The top four? I don’t think so,” he said. “It’s not like the first, second, third and fourth are playing like top teams. All of them, except Chelsea and Tottenham, have difficult times and it is not that the first four teams are all playing the best football at the moment. No. I have that feeling [of qualifying for Europe] but it is always more difficult to show it than to talk about it. If we can keep our fitness, and I’m sure we can, then with how the team is improving offensively I think we do have opportunities.
“There is a high confidence in the team and the team is understanding how we like to play. A good quality of the team is that we can change our system and everybody knows what to do in a different system and that makes it difficult for our opponents because they don’t know what system we will play and then we can change with little notice in a game. We don’t need a long time to settle into a new system. That was evident against Bournemouth – that’s what you want. From the moment we changed the team looked more comfortable and started scoring goals again. I am a fan of different systems, and also in training sessions we play out of different systems. We change and everybody knows what their function is in a different system.”