The Romelu Lukaku Saga volume VIII. But Mino said it was 99.9999% done…?

The Romelu Lukaku Saga volume VIII. But Mino said it was 99.9999% done…?

Everton stumbled across a Romelu Lukaku shaped bump in the road yesterday when the news broke that the toffees’ (and joint premier league) top goal scorer has no intention of signing a new contract with the blues.

The news came as a shock to most Evertonians who’d believed multiple noises (mainly emanating from Jim White via Lukaku’s agent Mino Raiola) that a new big-money contract was on the brink and due to be signed this week.

Before drawing conclusions as to what’s happened to result in this situation, it’s important to study the main players at the table; Romelu Lukaku, Mino Raoila, Farhad Moshiri and Bill Kenwright.

I’ll begin with the player in question, Romelu Lukaku.

Here we have a foreign player who’s now well into his fourth season at Goodison Park. The Belgian initially signed on loan for the 2012-13 season, before joining permanently on a 5-year contract the following summer, aged 21.

When he signed for Everton, Lukaku spoke about being at a club where he felt he belonged, being at a club where he could play and importantly, being at a club where he felt he could improve. It was a great move, both for the player and for Everton.

Since joining permanently, the Belgian has scored 20 goals or more for Everton in three consecutive seasons (the first Everton striker since Bob Latchford to achieve the feat) and in doing so, he’s overtaken Duncan Ferguson as the Toffees’ highest Premier League goalscorer.

Unfortunately for Everton, as well as he’s done personally, Lukaku joined the club at a time (the 2013-14 season aside) when the team has underachieved.

Back-to-back 11^th place finishes under Roberto Martinez meant the blues have found it hard to attract players of Lukaku’s calibre (last summer especially) and as such, the Belgian stands out a lot more than he should.

What’s more is the fact Romelu Lukaku has never been shy to speak about his own personal ambition as a footballer. He’s been very open about it; he wants to be in the Champion’s League and he wants to win trophies. He’s said so in the press and he’s said so on his social media – we might choose to fume or whatever, but the player’s been open about it.

Representing Lukaku is Mino ‘The Merciless’ Raoila, Romelu Lukaku’s agent, hired by Lukaku in April 2015.

Having secured the player’s representation, Raoila wasted no time in belittling Lukaku’s former agent by declaring Romelu Lukaku would have never been allowed to join Everton under his watch.

It was an outburst that pricked the ears of a few Evertonians and in truth, probably signalled the beginning of the end for Lukaku at Everton (or that’s what I thought).

Raoila represents some of the biggest and most high profile footballers in the world including; Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Paul Pogba and Mario Balotelli and is arguably second only to Jorges Mendes as the most-powerful agent in football.

His style of representation is known as being firm to the point it can be cutting. I read in Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s fantastic autobiography ‘I am Zlatan’ (go read it by the way) that he once took the Swede to dinner and at the table poured over his statistics compared with other top strikers in Italy. Zlatan was proud of his numbers but Mino told him to his face that they weren’t good enough. The agent said Zlatan was lazy, needed to do more and it descended into an argument in the middle of a restaurant, to the point Raoila told Zlatan to ‘go **** himself’.

What I’m getting at here is this agent doesn’t care what he says and to who. Raila is ruthless, he insulted a player who’s made him millions (over 100m throughout his career) in fees, risked losing him as a client, but didn’t bat an eyelid about saying what he thought.

Mino isn’t called ‘The merciless’ for nothing and whatever games Everton might try and play to sort this contract, he’s probably always one step ahead.

On the Everton side of the table, we’re likely to have Bill Kenwright and potentially Farhad Moshiri (I typically wouldn’t expect him to be too involved in contract negotiations, but this is Everton’s key player we’re discussing).

I’ll deal with Moshiri and Kenwright in quick succession, before quickly mentioning Ronald Koeman and Steve Walsh.

In Farhad Moshiri we have a man who is, by all accounts, ambitious and wants to build Everton Football Club into a power. He wants trophies, he wants to improve the brand, he wants it to be glorious and of course, let’s not forget, he wants to make great returns on his investments.

It’s well known that Farhad Moshiri was a major shareholder at Arsenal. He held shares that offered him perpetual returns but sold them to buy into a new venture at Everton. Whilst his holdings at Arsenal were substantial to you or I, they weren’t on a par with those of his pal Alisher Usmanov or the American Stan Kroenke, so it’s hard to know just how much of a say Farhad would’ve had at Arsenal, given the well-known American-Uzbek power struggle.

What I’m getting at here is Farhad Moshiri, the Everton money-man, isn’t necessarily used to sitting down and negotiating with agents. However, a man who is more used to running a football club is Everton chairman (and not everybody’s cup of tea), Bill Kenwright.

I’m not going to turn this into a ‘let’s slag off or let’s praise Bill Kenwright’ piece, lord knows they’ve been done to death and whilst there may be some merit in it, I’m strictly talking about experience around the negotiating table.

The first thing to say is Everton aren’t often ‘had off’ in negotiations. Although Kenwright often comes across as a fluffy, sentimental old get, the evidence suggests looks can be deceiving.

Look at the sales of John Stones, Joleon Lescott, Jack Rodwell and Maroune Fellaini in recent years. In all 4 instances the club have received good transfer fees and I don’t think the players have been missed as much as we’d feared at the time.

Also in recent years, the club have fought off competition for Leighton Baines, Seamus Coleman, Kevin Mirallas and the player who we’re now discussing, Romelu Lukaku.

I know we all like a meltdown and a good fume (anybody who follows me on twitter or reads my posts on The Everton Forum will know I’m partial to it myself at times) but Everton aren’t a selling club and when we do sell, we usually get good prices.

It is however interesting that our current manager, Ronald Koeman comes from a club in Southampton who are a selling club and I think there are both positives and negatives with this.

On the one hand, Koeman (a former top player himself, don’t forget) has stressed numerous times that it’s natural for a player (and a manager) to want to reach the highest level they can. In other words, he expects players who can move on to do so and if truth be told, he probably encourages them to (I also have no doubts Koeman would move on if a Champions League club in a major league came calling for him).

Yet on the other hand, in being at clubs who’ve regularly sold their best players, Koeman knows only too well that life goes on at a football club. Players come and go and it’s ultimately about managing those situations.

Nowadays, when players come and go from Everton, Steve Walsh comes into the equation. He’ll have his opinions on Lukaku; what he’s good at, what he brings to the team and importantly, what we need if (when) it comes to replacing him.

So, what’s happened with these negotiations?

None of us can say with any great certainty what’s happened in these negotiations and how the 0.0000001% has seemingly won the day in preventing Lukaku from signing the deal.

I look at it like this –

Romelu Lukaku knows he’s good enough to be playing and scoring in the Champions League and he knows he’s good enough to be challenging for titles.

Can Everton deliver that right now? No.

Of course, we all want to be there and that’s the aim under Moshiri, but the cold hard facts are we haven’t won a trophy for 22 years and we’re still a few levels behind the teams above us in the table.

Do Belgian people want Lukaku at Everton? No.

We all know (and some struggle to understand) the Belgian mind-set when it comes to Belgians playing for big clubs. There’s a reason every time they go back for international duty their press can’t wait to link/ask players about bigger teams, it’s this –

When you’re a Belgian football fan and your domestic league is that poor every good Belgian player leaves, you want to see them to be playing at a high level. Belgians want to see their players at Real Madrid, Barcelona, United etc. They think playing for these teams will put their country on the football map and help their national side (it’s very similar with the Dutch – which is why I mentioned Ronald Koeman’s attitude to moving clubs).

Why should Romelu Lukaku wait, on the off-chance Everton can break the top 4 when he’s good enough to be in the Champions League now?

Okay, people will say ‘Everton gave him his chance, he owes us loyalty’ but the fact is, having this guy for 4 years (maybe 5 if we squeak one more season out of him) is a good return. Lukaku doesn’t owe us loyalty, he’s a foreign player, no ties to Everton and he’s given us more goals than we’ve ever had from 1 player in the Premier League era. I hate to say it, but he’s probably too good for us right now.

I personally believe these contract talks weren’t to secure the player’s services for years to come but to secure Everton a good fee when the time comes for him to go (which would seem to be the case, given reported differences in the release clause Everton wanted vs what Raoila wanted). We’d be incredibly naïve to think Lukaku would be an Everton player forever.

Another thing to mention is the use of the media throughout these negotiations.

Mino Raoila and Farhad Moshiri have been playing the same game, using a story hungry journalist as the middle man. Both have phoned Jim White on the radio and said the contract is very much on course, yet now things have broken down, we’re left to wonder why they did it?

Well, for Moshiri, it continues the positivity around the club, everything’s on the up and up, fans are happy. However for Raoila, whilst it also contributes to Everton positivity, it pricks the ears of potential suitors. Almost as if to say ‘Ermmm, guys, Lukaku will sign this deal and you’ll have to pay more if you don’t contact me soon. Hurry up, I can’t keep stalling forever’.

Or maybe that’s too cynical.

Another potential scenario is it’s suddenly become clear that a first-choice striker vacancy will become available in summer at a top club. With Raolia’s man Zlatan Ibrahimovic linked with the MLS and stalling over a new deal at Manchester United, it could be that he’s off and Jose Mourinho fancies working with Lukaku again or, with Diego Costa rumoured to be keen on some Chinese cash, Lukaku could be back to Stamford Bridge.

Things happen quickly in football, so over the last week, either of these (or another) eventuality could’ve become clear.

Back in the here and now though, I do think the timing of this leak is very strange, given we’re only three quarters of the way through our season and this news has the potential to damage moral around the squad.

I wonder whether Koeman should pick Lukaku this weekend for the visit of Hull.

I think there’s very little chance he’ll be left out. Koeman doesn’t strike me as a manager to take a player out of the firing line, he wants to win games and he knows players come and go so will expect Evertonians to be of a similar mind-set. The problem is I can almost guarantee Lukaku receive a poor reception. (He is the top league goal scorer, but doesn’t run around enough, remember?)

In the end, I wouldn’t be surprised if some form of contract was signed.

The club will present it as a victory but ultimately it’ll be the player and his agent who’ve won as the release clause will be lower than what we wanted, leaving Everton vulnerable to losing Lukaku.

For the time being though, the player remains contracted until summer 2019 so it’s not quite panic stations just yet.

Everton could easily keep Lukaku for another season. However, if the club want to maximise their transfer fee, this summer will be the time to let him go.

One thing is for sure though, this summer is going to be massive for Everton in a number of ways. Not least of all because if Lukaku is sold, we’ll only have kids like Dominic Calvert-Lewin to play up front (Arouna Kone’s contract expires and Enner Valencia’s loan expires).

Quick replacements if Lukaku does leave? It’ll be tough but I like Werner, Belotti, Bakambu and Lazazette – can we attract any, I have no idea – European football next season is imperative.

Summer is going to very much be time for Steve Walsh to come to the fore, but I’m sure there’ll be more developments on Lukaku between now and then.  As Bill Kenwright says, let’s watch this space.

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