On Monday evening Everton travel to the Black Country for a game against West Bromwich Albion; a team whom the Blues have had mixed success against in recent years, with results differing as much as 4-1 defeats at home, all the way to the comfortable 2-0 win at the Hawthorns last year. If Everton are to succeed this time round then they will need out-of-form Lukaku to start playing well again. Luckily for Martinez’s men, this may just be the exact type of game in which the striker usually thrives.
In this fixture last year Lukaku scored his first goal of the season, and what a goal it was as well, as a fierce curling shot with his weaker right foot found the bottom corner after just a few minutes. This may give the 22-year-old some confidence, especially as he scored 16 goals for West Brom during his 2012/13 loan spell there.
As well as this, West Brom aren’t in the best of form. Despite winning their last league against rivals Aston Villa, it took a rather fortunate flick of the boot from want-away Saido Berahino to secure the points. Since then, the Baggies have been knocked out of the Capital One Cup by Everton’s 4th round opponents, Norwich. And with Everton still managing to pick up points despite not seeing any player regularly finding the back of the net, the team’s morale should be fairly good.
To add even more fuel to this currently unlit fire, if the Swansea game last week is anything to go by then Rom will have no shortage of opportunities, especially with Barkley in such good form and Deulofeu pushing for a start.
Regardless of whether Lukaku scores or not Everton really must win this game with three tough fixtures against Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal up next. I just hope that Lukaku does have his scoring boots on so he is in form for what could well be the end of our tough beginning.
