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ROBERTO MARTINEZ has spent the summer searching for a new number 10.

He still is.

A positional number 10, that is. A man to operate between the lines. Not the actual number 10.

Because the man who wears that iconic shirt number, Romelu Lukaku, will be crucial to everything Everton aim to achieve this season.

Lukaku scored 20 goals last season – comfortably Everton’s top scorer.

The season before he scored 16, in significantly fewer matches. And once again he was unchallenged as Everton’s leading marksman.

That’s 36 goals in two seasons as an Everton centre-forward – for a young man who only celebrated his 22nd birthday in May.

Lukaku is in some elite company

That puts him in some elite company.

Look at the list of players with more Premier Legaue goals than Romelu Lukaku since August, 2012. It’s a short one.

Luis Suarez, Robin van Persie and Sergio Aguero.

Each one a world-class finisher – and each one at least half a decade older than the Everton striker.

It is uncertain whether Lukaku will ever reach those levels, but he is surely only going to improve as a footballer.

Look at the last young Everton prodigy to rattle goals before he’d barely started shaving.

Blues fans were given a brief reminder of Wayne Rooney's talents at Goodison Park on Sunday - at the grand old age of 29 and three-quarters.

But he scored his 100th career goal aged 22 years and 88 days young, after grabbing his first as a precocious 16-year-old for Everton.

Lukaku compars more than favourably.

Last February the Belgian scored his 99th and 100th career goals against Young Boys of Berne.

The date was February 26 – three months short of his 22nd birthday.

Lukaku’s goalscoring achievements are already topped only by his promise. It has become fashionable to raise eyebrows at the £28m Everton were forced to pay Chelsea for his signature.

But, if Everton can play to his considerable strengths, that sum will start to look like a bargain.

And he is keen to learn.

“In Belgium, you grow up watching all the leagues - Germany, France, Spain, Italy, England - and I watch them all,” he said. “I remember watching Bayern Munich v Man City last year and Muller was always running in behind, running in behind.

“He never got the ball four times. But the fifth time he did it – goal. I tried that in a game and the third time I did, I got it and scored.”

He is still adding tricks and experience to his armoury.

No flat track bully

A large portion of last season’s 20-goal haul came in European competition, but Lukaku is no flat track bully. He has scored against Liverpool (twice), Arsenal (twice) and Manchester City in his two-year spell at Goodison.

But it isn’t just goals which underline Lukaku’s worth to the Blues. It was his hooked cross-shot which set up Bryan Oviedo for an historic first Everton win at Old Trafford for more than 20 years in 2013.

That was one of eight goal-creating interventions from the Belgian in 2013/14, to which he added another half-dozen last season.

He scores goals, he creates them – and he is still getting better.

Yet the forward still doesn’t inspire complete devotion from the fans in the way that a Latchford, an Andy Gray or a Duncan Ferguson did.

A couple of misplaced quotes to a Belgian journalist - “I want to develop so I can eventually get back to playing for a club like Chelsea” - and an admission by his new agent Mino Raiola that “If we had met each other earlier, he wouldn’t have played for Everton,” might have cooled Evertonian ardour.

But the truth is, Lukaku is integral to any success Everton are hoping to achieve this season.

Everton must keep him fit.

When asked back in May if he was looking for a new striker, Roberto Martinez was adamant.

“No,” he declared. “We want to keep two number nines. And we have other players who can play in that position if needed. So that is the way we are going to structure the squad.”

He appears to have had a change of heart since, admitting after Sunday's defeat by Villarreal that perhaps Lukaku may need some support after all.

Since the unsuccessful experiment with Lacina Traore in the second half of the 2013/14 season, Lukaku has effectively led the Everton forward line single-handed.

Steven Naismith and Kevin Mirallas can play up top, but neither has the physical presence to be a traditional line leader.

Arouna Kone has been struggling to find form and fitness ever since he arrived at Goodison from Wigan Athletic – and still seems no closer to either.

While Conor McAleny is an untried youngster still striving to overcome the traumatic affects of a broken leg sustained on loan at Brentford.

If Everton are going to repeat the promise they showed during Roberto Martinez's debut season at Goodison Park in 2012/13 - keeping Romelu Lukaku fit and firing will be crucial.