Romelu Lukaku’s loan success

Liverpool, United Kingdom: Romelu Lukaku was the boy built like two men, a specimen and a scorer from the moment he broke through at Anderlecht aged 16. He speaks six languages. “I’m, like, a football freak,” he grins. “But he’s one as well.” The fellow oddity he refers to is Roberto Martinez - who is so obsessive he times every training session to the last second. Lukaku has a hobby that will delight his boss.

It involves a DVD library the striker curates. No, nothing dodgy — the discs contain football footage with a singular theme. Top forwards and their development: the early games, the milestone matches, the performances when they peak. He announces, fearlessly: “My main ambition is just being the best.” So he watches and tries to learn. He’s 20 but an ideal evening is one spent in front of his screen, studying the stars he wants to emulate. Didier Drogba is the all-time hero but Lukaku also has DVDs charting the careers of Robin van Persie and Wayne Rooney.

“Football, it’s my passion. I observe a lot of great players because if you want to be one of them you have see how their improvement happened.

“I try to inspire myself by watching those clips. Drogba, when he got older he got better and better. Some players at 29, 30, have arrived at their peak but he was the best at 32. So I question, ‘How?’ Cristiano Ronaldo’s very impressive. Van Persie as well, improving and improving. He was a player who had a lot of injuries and became injury-free and top scorer in the league.

“I also watch basketball players and American football players because their sports are far more demanding and they play with concussions and bad injuries - but their determination and drive to be successful are very inspiring.”

His analysis habit has put him in tune with Martinez. Before facing Aston Villa, Lukaku told the manager he had noted, while watching Villa play Tottenham, one particular camera shot that revealed how much space Villa gave Roberto Soldado to head the ball. Martinez had spotted it too. “He said, ‘Yeah, you have to play like this’. It’s good working with someone who has the same drive and ambition,” Lukaku says.

He ended up scoring against Villa, with a first-time, early-taken finish from 18 yards that screamed of a striker on his game, his fifth goal in five Everton starts. The only Premier League players to outscore Lukaku since the start of 2013 are an elite group: Luis Suarez, Daniel Sturridge, Christian Benteke and Van Persie.

On loan at West Brom last season he scored 17 times, but Chelsea sent him out again because Jose Mourinho thought him unpolished. Well, by the week he’s acquiring sheen. Martinez says: “He’s been a real pleasure, he can be one of the world’s best.” On YouTube, watch Lukaku’s solo goal in Belgium’s recent defeat of Croatia: this juggernaut is starting to flatten defences at top levels the way he did in Holland as a teenager.

“I was keen to go on loan,” he says. “At the start [of the season] I thought I might get a few chances [at Chelsea] but in my mind was that the best thing was to play again and confirm the good work I’d done at West Brom.” He chose Everton from “a lot ... a lot” of clubs in England and abroad who made loan offers. “I think this was the best choice because, after the top six, Everton is the best team in the league.” he says.

Rejoining West Brom, who wanted him back, would have been easier but “you have to challenge yourself and I had to challenge myself to play in a team that has most of the possession of the ball. I had to improve my movement, my skills, my determination — because in difficult games I might have to be decisive in the last minute.” He talks of having to “earn my spot week-in week- out,” treating every training session “like it’s my last” and feeling, with Nikica Jelavic and Arouna Kone challenging for starts, he has “to deliver” or “I’m out”. This is a self-aware young man who featured in a year-long television documentary about his schooldays. “I want to get up there as quickly as possible and I want to stay there as long as possible. Be one of the best as quickly as possible and then maintain it for the rest of my career.”

That’s why he doesn’t mind nights in. Bling-free and dressed down, he says the trappings don’t fixate him. “You know, the better it gets the bigger it gets. You understand my thought process? The better [a career] gets, the more money, the bigger house, the bigger car you get and blah blah blah. But that is not my main ambition. Winning games. Scoring goals at the weekend. That’s my thing.

“The rest comes along with it. My goal was to play football, make my parents proud, first, then provide for my family. With those two things I’ve succeeded already. Now it’s up to me to focus on my career.”

As the competition prize for Belgium fans, he and compatriot Simon Mignolet played table football with them in a pub. He left Mignolet to serve the drinks - for religious reasons, he won’t touch alcohol. But he’s not a total goody-goody. Everton’s press officer presents him with a new set of computer game controls. He smashed up the last set playing Fifa 14 with Kevin Mirallas. “My goalkeeper did an error in the last minute of extra-time and that did it,” laughs our not-always-gentle giant.

A long talk with Mirallas - and input from Marouane Fellaini - convinced him to pick Everton. He clicks, off and on the pitch, with Ross Barkley,another starlet. He likes the blend of youngsters and pros.

How high can Everton aim?

“Listen, it’s November. This is my third year in England and I’ve learnt that December, January and February, that’s when the race starts. Then March to May, that’s the finish line.

“From early March, that’s when we’ll know what Everton are challenging for. Is it Champions League? Top four? Or Europa League? But not under, because our team’s too good.

“If we’re still doing what we’re doing now, then we’re challenging for the top four. Because you have to be ambitious: we have a great squad, a great team, a great manager, who is ambitious too.

“But it’s November. Let’s keep going. Then from March if we’re in the same position, then you have to challenge for the biggest thing ever.”