Lukaku – Driven, Focused, Hungry

, 9 October, 0comments  |  Jump to most recent
'Let me do everything I can to help Everton'

A compelling interview with Chris Bascombe published in the Irish Independent reveals the maturity and drive behind Everton's loan striker, Romelu Lukaku, who just became the first player to score in his first three League games for the Blues in almost 70 years.

Knowing that there is every chance the 20-year-old will return to Chelsea next summer, Evertonians are simply enjoying having a reliable goalscorer leading the line and anticipating even better to come once he attains the fitness that will allow him to maintain his goal threat for a full 90 minutes.

Lukaku, meanwhile, is obsessively working on his own development as a striker while keeping his focus squarely on the here-and-now when it comes to first-team football, even as the national sport media appear intent only on framing his time at Goodison in the context of Jose Mourinho sending him out on loan and his return to Stamford Bridge.

Lukaku insists, however (although it is contradicted somewhat by comments attributed to him in Het Nieuwsblad where he says he had no choice in the matter), that it was he and not the Portuguese who was the driving force behind the decision to spend another season away from Chelsea.

"Let me be honest about this," he says. "I did not know if I'd be playing for Chelsea so I asked the manager to let me leave.

"It's unfair to criticise Mourinho for letting me go because it was my decision. [T]here comes a point where you must think about yourself to show everyone that you can shine and be one of the best strikers in the league."

Lukaku clearly has every desire to play for Belgium at next year's World Cup Finals in what will be a highly-fancied Red Devils team and that heavily influenced his thinking.

"I could have stayed and fought," he continues, "but it was not about the competition. When you are a 20-year-old you need minutes. I lost my place in the national team because I did not play for a year with Chelsea. I want that position back."

All the while, the Antwerp-born player is relentlessly striving to become the best player he can.

"I want to make all defenders scared of me," he says. From Van Persie, Drogba and Defoe to Rooney and Henry, "I study them all. I'm 20, but I still want to see a massive improvement in myself. I agree 100% with Mourinho when he says I am not like Drogba. I want to be myself.

"There has never been a better target man than him but I want to be an all-rounder. So I don't want to have my qualities compared to Drogba."

The beneficiary of that drive to improve for this season will, of course, be Everton and Lukaku's commitment is squarely with the Blues this season where he has been linking up well with a player he remembers well from an U13 game between Lierse and Everton at Belgium's Bierbeek Tournament in 2006.

"Ross Barkley... was in the Everton side that day and was already very good," Lukaku recalls. "On my first day training with him, I said 'do you remember that tournament?' He was like 'no way, that was you?'. I've told him I will give him a copy of the DVD I've kept.

"This is why we're getting on so well. There were a lot of players who went on from that generation who played in that tournament and I've followed their career."

Roberto Martinez will be hoping the pair can continue to gel in Everton's attack as he plots a way into the top-four this season despite the challenge posed by his rivals' significantly superior ability to spend on the world's best talent.

"What's most important to me now is the present, not the future," Lukaku says. "I'm thinking about today, tomorrow and the day after, not a few months or a year. That's why I don't want to think about what will happen at the end of this season.

"Just let me play, let me improve and let me do everything I can to help Everton. I knew after a week here I was in the right place. Later? There is World Cup this summer. After that we will see."

» Read the full interview at Independent.ie

Quotes or other material sourced from Irish Independent





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