Romelu Lukaku should take it as a credit for just how effective he has been this season that the attention around him has focused on something he has not done as opposed to everything he routinely delivers.

Video highlights: Everton 3 Burnley 1

Premier League goal number 24 was dispatched with ease beyond Burnley’s Tom Heaton on Saturday, and yet thoughts turned swiftly back to the £140,000-a-week contract Everton have presented to the forward but which remains unsigned.

The success Lukaku has enjoyed this season, en route to becoming one of the nominees for PFA Player of the Year, has been appreciated far beyond Goodison Park.

At Chelsea and Manchester United, certainly, and at a cluster of other clubs there is recognition that although the talent of modern strikers is often