New deal – plus loan option – for Lukaku

Okay, sounds good in theory... but isn't this just pushing the inevitable back for a year? Get him permanently or say goodbye and lets get someone in who we know is going to be there for the long run.

How about Hernandez from Man Utd? This kid has goalscoring in his blood and I reckon we can get him for around £5-7m.

Another one is Rossi from Fiorentina; okay, he has has a few bad injuries but he is a cut above the rest and again would cost a lot less than Lukaku.

Whilst we are at it, Destro from Roma, scores for fun. Don't get me wrong; I'd take Lukaku all day long on a 5-year deal but it looks unlikely, so let's see what else is out there.

Roberto has said that he doesn't expect anything to be sorted with the lad until after the World Cup and yet we seem to have a new Lukaku story every day. It's going to be a loooooonnnnngggggg summer guys.

Mind you, if he does come back, it'll be like a new....

Lukaku? Yes, please, for another season. It's a no brainer. A top class centre forward, who is a real important part of the Everton team, without the outlay of £20 million, that can be spent somewhere else on the pitch, again, yes, please.

If it is possible to buy or loan we should get him back. This is our top goal scorer, a player who fits in with our club and is proven. I would rather him player for us than against us any day. Would like to see more depth up front, so bony would be good and or remy. Think if the aim (longer term) is to win the league then we have to be looking towards 2-3 top quality strikers.

Would another loan season for Lukaku be that bad? What this could mean is that what funds are available are used to strengthen in other areas, perhaps also including another permanent striker. This would give us the opportunity to use 2015-16 summer transfer funds on Lukaku? This obviously is all permitting on whether he would have another reasonable season at Everton, Chelsea wanting to keep him, or Lukaku himself wanting to go elsewhere.

I think the biggest decision Everton have to make is that, if they do buy Lukaku, then it will undoubtedly break our transfer record and probably around the £20-25 million mark. For us to spend that amount of money on one player alone, Everton would have to be 100% certain for the move to work out in their favour. Would another loan move be such a bad idea if we can focus and prioritise the recruitment on other areas first?

I wish the loan pricing was a bit clearer. When they say for example that the Lukaku loan this season was £6m does that mean the price of covering his wages over the season or is that a £6m loan fee on top of his wages?

If the former then fair enough, it comes out of our wage budget and is decent value. If the latter then its ok for a stop gap but is not a sustainable long term plan.

Let's say the latter is true and we repeat next season then we will have spent £12m (plus wages) on a striker that we don't own and still have to replace next Summer. That's a lot of outlay on top of the wage budget with no asset gained. Bony cost £12m last Summer for example and is now probably worth almost double that to Swansea.

So what if we get him on another season loan and he hits 20-plus goals for us?? Instead of £15-20 million, we need to sign him now, it will be nearer £30 million.

I look at Newcastle with Ba and Cisse – they went straight out and bought these players for very little; then when they started knocking in the goals it was win, win. It helped the team but, if cash crazy Arabs or Russians came in with silly money, it was still a good situation.

Every time Lukaku scored this season, I was delighted but a part of me said "That's another million onto his price tag." Let's just sign him up while he is still an investment, because signing him for £20 million already leaves us with not a lot of sell-on value unless he starts hitting 30 goals a season.

It will make Arsne Wenger angry!

Ownership Vs Loan .... I realised recently I've been indoctrinated by the consumerist society where we are encouraged to "own" things (and therefore give the people who are giving you things loads of money).

Think about it ... if you rent a Ferarri for a weekend, you get to drive it, you get to experience it, you have the thrills - you have no worries. If you BUY a Ferrari, after handing out a huge wadge of cash, you get the maintenance, you get the bills - you get depreciation - and you're really gutted when it's dinked in the supermarket carpark.

Ownership isn't great - and it's not permanent. If we spend £20 million on a striker, he could rip his ACL, or achilles in the first match, miss a season and never be the same again. If he doesn't, and plays brilliantly, he might inevitably move on for a profit, or he could turn out a pup and we lose out.

In one of the scenarios we lose out on a profit, in two of the scenarios we lose (lots of) money. More chance of losing the filthy lucre than building it.

If we loan him for a season, the same 3 scenarios could happen, but we don't stand to gain cash, yet at the same time have a much greater chance of not LOSING cash. This cash could be spent on upping the quality and breadth of the squad players. Surely it's better sense, therefore to try to loan the marquee players for a season, and let others take the risk.

So yeah - I'm happy to loan the maquee players!

I'm with Sam on this one: if we loan him again next year and pay high wages and a loan fee, we will have ultimately paid several million with absolutely no end benefit (obviously other than him playing for us). A high percentage of his fee paid off but not really..

I don't understand the logic that says getting Lukaku is bad for us? Who cares about high wages, when another striker of his worth would cost similar wages? We could buy a young striker who is either crap (and not worth the money) or great, and who we end up selling within a couple of years anyway.

Lukaku is a risk-free move. He is guaranteed goals, and will only improve. He will improve our relationship with the deepest squad in the league (look at how many young players Chelski have out on loan, even if they have less top senior players than City), and perhaps facilitate the loaning of other players in the future.

We do not have a big squad, and we do not have lots of money. If we get Lukaku on loan again, we could spend the £15M it would likely to take to replace his goals on other areas of the team, and worry about a striker next year.

Read today that Brenda is going in for Lukaku, and Barkley!!

He costs £5M a season to loan... we end up spending a total of £10M!... Chelsea then have a 21-year-old who, if he gets better, will be worth £30M+ to sell... or keep... or loan again. Brill bit of bizz from the football version of the Duke of Westminster, Mourinhio. A proper bit of Hertz rental acumen, that.

So we can forget all about buying him... In fact, it might kick start a similar scenario with other (rich) clubs.

I think he's more than proved that he's not a one-season wonder; he did the same for West Brom. I'd rather own but, if not, I agree with John Pirlo.

Hernandez and Remy would be a great partnership, one with an £8 million buyout and the other even for the same would be good business. Both are proven in the Prem and would cost less than Lukaku combined in transfer fees.

And if Lukaku is available on loan again, then happy days – send Troaré back, that's just wasting money. Also, we can't sit back and wait for Koné to maybe get fit – there's a good chance he will never be the same again... whatever the same was. We could loan him out to Wigan and see how he gets on.

That's the front sorted; now for midfield... Improving a very good team isn't easy – I'm off for a lie down.

If we can loan in Lukaku it makes sense. It will free money to purchase other top players and anything can happen during a season. So long as the lad wants to play for us and Chelsea are willing to let us have him, what is the problem? Even our previous stars in some cases only stayed for a couple of seasons including Lineker, Rooney and Collins.

I cannot for the life of me understand the negativity of some of our fans. They would prefer us to spend money on bringing back players we have already discarded. Names like Rodwell who has done nothing whilst with us and even less after he left.

It was the loan players who gave us a lift during this past season. If we cannot afford to buy then we must loan. I do not want our bench filled with ’Yozzer Hughes’ types who are totally non-productive.

Raise the expectations and really have a go next season and see what the future brings. If we continue to improve, the money will roll in and our prospects will soar!

Even if we're paying £6m per season, isn't the point of that fee that it's the going-rate for Lukaku based on his market valuation? I mean if (as reported) Chelsea value him at £25m then £6m a season is about right?

If we bought him on a 4 year contract, it's roughly the same price. Or am I going mental?

Chris-979. The trouble is that if we are paying a loan fee then we do lose cash. Quite a lot if it's £6m a year. Also your metaphor of a Ferrari is flawed as cars immediately lose value with exposure whereas the opposite is often true with young footballers. I think your logic holds if you are just paying wages but not necessarily if there is a big loan fee on top, in which case if we loaned Lukaky for 3 years we may have paid £18m on top of his wages which is more than Chelsea bought him for!

James, 004 if we loaned him for 4 years you have spent £25m and have nothing at the end of it. If you buy him for £25m (and don't let his contract run out) then you have an asset you can hopefully sell for at least £25m if not more if he does well. Let's say hypothetically he keeps scoring and we sell him to Real Madrid after 3 seasons for £40m.

Potentially the difference is losing £25m from the transfer pot or adding £15m at the end of the day!

I'm not gonna be too disappointed if we loan Lukaku again but if we are paying a £6m loan fee on top of his wages then Chelsea are doing very well out of this deal and such exploiting sets a bad precedent for the rich clubs to buy up all the young stars and loan them out for vast profit.

I take your point, Sam, I hadn't considered loan fee (I had considered salary and reckoned on that cancelling itself out).

That's part of the world where I don't really understand business ... I mean, we DO get the services of a player, true, but we TRAIN them, stop them STAGNATING on the bench, RAISE their VALUE AND (wish I had bigger caps for that) have to pay for that too? Who agreed to that being a code of practice?

That's like replacing a bit of free footie on TV with a system where you can pay to watch loads of rubbish footie and adverts. Then, when you're used to shelling out what you used to enjoy for nowt they have the even better idea of charging you the same then adding Pay Per View on top.

Amazes me how that kind of thing catches on.

(And - I wasn't expecting my simile to be perfect.... you an English teacher?)

Tony Williams, you say we get no end benefit, obviously other than him playing for us. Wrong, fella. Lukaku's goals could be the difference between qualifying for the Champions League or not. And that definitely has tangible (read cash) rewards.

Also, in that scenario (us qualifying for Champions League) we will be in a much better position to sign him permanently thereafter. Both from a cash in hand point of view, and in terms of swaying him to sign on the dotted line.

Win win, really. Get him on another season-long loan, and use the cash saved now in strengthening the rest of the team!

Agreed, Sam, Chelsea do very well out of the deal. Everton do as well though, albeit with less to cash in on at the end of it all.

We're in a tricky situation though because balancing our ability to attract top players versus our ability to afford them is a tough one.

Would Lukaku even want to join us full-time? From everything he's said that's doubtful so y'know....

Eric,

It's pathetic... if there's one club Mourinho won't countenance Lukaku going to, it's got to be them.

The Barkley stuff is laughable and based on a few reds blowing smoke up his arse and begging him in broken English to join 'LFC' on Twitter:

"I see so many similarities I almost cries real tears. From my eye. We is almost like brothers. In age we are nearly identical. You are 2 years older than me and I am 3 years younger than you. You weren't born on a Wednesday and neither wasn't I. You are quite tall and I measure almost as tall. Just shorter. You plays the football some very, very specialist and I plays the football also some very, very specialist on Fifa 2012.

Liverpools FC's is the number one for me and I sings the song loud with scarf in the sky and many many tears leaking down my face like I am miserable woman with messy vagina and many many ingrown hairs. I cries even more cries when the most specialist player, my twin, the Ross Barkerlers, signs for Liverpools Fc's because it is like myself have signed for Liverpools Fc's.

Then I come live with you in Liverpools in August and make the sex with many many men's, women's and mermaids. The mermaids is my favourite Ross, with the boobs likes a ladies but the cock and balls like a boys. You must ask new boss and best manager in all the worlds, Mr Brendan Rodgers, to introduce me to some."

I'm not even taking the piss. That's pretty much word for word.

An option if the right striker cannot be sourced this summer. It would allow us the use this summers budget on strengthening the squad for the Europa League campaign, then we can spend a bigger proportion the following year on a Lukaku replacement. If this is a real option I would go for it.

We paid a loan fee which was around 5m I think plus wages on top of that so it's not like a loan is cost free. To do that again would mean we spend 10-15m on him with no asset at the end of it.

That doesn't make financial sense to me. You could buy Remy outright for that.

The only figure I've ever seen for Lukaku was a £3M loan fee, plus his wages. I can only imagine £6M is the combination, which would be about right (at ~60k / week).

Wouldn't say no at having him for 1 more season on loan at similar rates. If you buy a £20M striker, on a 5 year deal, thats about £4M / season that gets written off.

There is also no such thing as permanent nowadays anyway. If a player wants out, they almost invariably get their way.

I've read 2 different versions of this story, 1 in the Guardian and 1 in the Independent
Independent states that he could go back to Everton on loan as he is still unlikely to get much chance at Chelsea. Makes you wonder why bother with the contract extension.
The 1 in the Guardian is probably nearer the mark, states Chelsea are considering extending his contract unless he has a good World Cup and another cub comes in with a big offer price.

This is Chelsea's mind games. Everton need their own striker now or we will be another year down the line waiting and still be in the same boat this time next year. I like Lukaku and think he would be great for the club but only as a contracted player to our club

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The three million in loan fee will be recouped with finishing position in the league, I am certain his goals will pay for his loan fees and wages so good deal in my opinion.

I would get him in on loan and go for Bony as well. Lukaku, Bony and Kone for next season would be good.

If true bite their hands off and get a quality creative midfielder in and use the rest of the tv money to SORT THE STADIUM OUT!

If Lukaku stays, then with Oviedo, Kone and Gibbo back, we wont meed that many new players to be ready for next year. (Assuming Traore is loaned for the season as well.)

Jump at him and Thorgan Hazard. Spend the 20 million on a top top creative midfielder and whatever is left on squad players.

Take Gerard and Traroe on loan as well and we are all set for next season.

Am I the only one who can see this!?...

Ok... This is very plausible! It's a good deal for Chelsea, and still a good deal for Everton.

We loan Lukaku for another season... and use the money we have set aside to buy Lukaku (seeing as we wouldn't buy him after he pens new paper at Chelsea) to buy... wait for it... Wilfried Bony!

Now we have Lukaku aaaand Bony! YOU'RE WELCOME!

Ummmm that's kind of what I was saying, David ... but didn't mention any players' names.

What's Lukaku's say in this? Will he be happy at being kept on at Chelsea and not being in the team again? Does he even want a permanent move to EFC?

Surely nothing will happen until after the World Cup. He could score 6 goals in the group stages!