Lukaku Does It Again For Everton

The fixture against West Ham away may not have looked as difficult when the fixture list came out but after a string of impressive results, it a credible draw for Everton. West Ham away is never easy and so it proved here.

Everton never really clicked in the way we can and we weren’t able to put West Ham under spells of pressure to dominate the game and come away with the victory. In the end it was a fair result and one that leads us into the international break optimistic that we’ll be able to put a run of results together on the other side.

After his hat-trick heroics vs Sunderland it was a much quieter game for Kone than he would have liked. Not that he did much wrong but with competition for places so high, we didn’t take his opportunity. The same can be said for Steven Naismith after the Chelsea and his hat-trick there. Both were given the opportunity to start the match afterwards and both are seen as squad players at the moment and both failed to stamp their authority of the first eleven. Tom Cleverley looks like he’ll be Martinez’ first choice down that left hand side and with his return imminent, Kone didn’t do enough in this match to say that the spot should be his.

Talking about imminent returns, there seemed to be a debate amongst Everton fans as to whether Leighton Baines should be coming straight back into the team. For me it’s a non debate. Galloway has done extremely well considering his age, experience and being out of position but Baines is simply one of the best attacking full backs of his generation and still one of the best in the world. It wasn’t a great game for Galloway but that can be excused. If we had Baines in this match we would of carried a lot more of an attacking threat. Galloway had a few great attacking positions down the left side but more importantly, we had several free-kicks which went to waste. We miss Baines, even if we have done well without him.

One big positive from this season is Lukaku. He is getting better and better, and seven from severn now vs West Ham. The biggest difference in this season is that even when he’s looking like he’s not playing well, he’ll come up with some magic for a goal or an assist. Against West Brom and Sunderland especially he started badly before helping us win the match. It seems like he offers us something in every match now instead of going missing which he has done in the past. He obviously still has a lot to work on but one of them isn’t his finishing ability. Put him in on goal and there aren’t many strikers you’d trust more than Lukaku. After he got onto the end on Deulofeu’s wonderful through ball, the rest just seemed like an inevitability.

I Think we can leave with our heads held high. The goal we conceded, we couldn’t have done much about. After the ball luckily fell into Lanzini’s path from a clearance, it was sheer class from the Argentine and one of those where you just have to shrug your shoulders and say well played. In general we defended well and Funes Mori looks well worth the £9.5m that was paid for him. Most Everton fans were worried about what to expect but that worry has died away as his composed performances have fit right in.

We’re still in an okay position considering who we’ve played and we can come back from the break with confidence that we’ll soon be in those European places.