The other day Alan Pardew said that Romelu Lukaku had the ability to emulate Didier Drogba. This is a statement I’ve been saying since he was on loan at West Brom back in 2012-2013 when he scored 17 goals in 35 games at the age of 19/20.
Now even though I’ve agreed with this statement for around about 3 years I’m actually going to disagree with Pardew on this and state that Lukaku will far exceed Drogba career-wise, goal scoring-wise and on an international level.
I’ll start with The Belgian's international record. He’s 22 and has had 42 caps so far (according to Wikipedia.) He had his first cap in 2010, 5 years ago. Now let’s assume he’ll last until he’s around 35, if he continues to have this amount of international appearances until that age he should be able to finish his career with around 109 caps as a minimum.
~ Didier Drogba is 37 and just shy of that mark with 104 caps for the Ivory Coast ~
Now when you look at the squad that Belgium have you may see it as a new version of the golden generation that England had. a load of young, top quality players, playing at some of the finest clubs in Europe. You’d have to assume that at some point within the next 4-8 years, these lads are going to seriously challenge at an international tournament and I can see Lukaku being their leading man along with the likes of Hazard, De Bruyne, Mirallas, etc.
Belgium are currently the number 1 team in the world and will probably stay there for a long while if these lads fill their potential.
Now Lukaku is currently at Everton, a team who in recent weeks have been opening teams up at will. I actually thought Everton would be up there at around 7th/6th. Sadly though due to defensive frailties the Toffee’s find themselves in 11th place, 8 points off a Champions League place. Is it too late to right off Everton as Champions League contenders?
In my opinion...no it's not too late. This season the league is so open that it wouldn’t surprise anyone if one or two teams such as Tottenham, West Ham, Crystal Palace or even Stoke were in Europe in some way next season. It’s only December and Everton have got a good side.
Now if Everton don’t get a European place this season there would be talk of Romelu going to a big European team. We all know what the press are like, speculation would be rife about the Belgian moving for Champions League experience and what not but what I want to know is what price would be acceptable for such talent?
He’s bagged 13 goals in all competitions this season and looks set to beat his previous seasonal best of 17 in the Premier League. Now given the fact that he could score well over 20 goals this season and the fact that he is not even in his prime yet you’d have to argue that this lad is worth no less than £40million.
~ I’m sure some people will say he’s not worth that much but I’m also sure others will say he’s worth so much more than that. All about opinion is this game ~
He signed for The Toffees for £28mil (a pretty hefty fee if I'm honest) and for me they could potentially get double that back for their number 10. With this potential price tag it begs the question...what was Mourinho thinking letting this kid go? He was a perfect replacement for Didier Drogba but wasn't given the chance at Chelsea.
To me though that's typical of Mourinho. He let go of Lukaku and De Bruyne, two players with great talent and are only going to get better. He doesn't look to the future and that's why teams seem to slip during or after his third season in charge of them e.g. Porto having a shocker after his departure, lost the league 3 weeks before the end of the season after defeat to Arsenal, do I really need to mention Inter Milan?
~ Chelsea fans will deny this of course but you can't argue with facts ~
For me it's just another reason I want Everton to get a Champions League spot. So come May Lukaku can turn round to Mourinho, arms out Wolf Of Wall Street style, as if to say “you could've had this but instead you went for...Fernando Torres...and Demba Ba…”
Only time will tell for this lad and I for one am extremely excited to see him develop along with Ross Barkley who for me is going to be my generation's Gazza (as a footballer not in regards to the lifestyle.) If you enjoyed reading please share it and don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @ThePenaltyKing1 where I post all my blog updates regularly.
~ Anyone who enjoyed this please follow me on Twitter @ThePenaltyKing1 or like me on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/ThePenaltyKing1 ~
Cheers for reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment