And striker thanks fans for award
ROMELU Lukaku has thanked fans for voting him Albion’s Zoopla Player of the Month for February – insisting he is having a 'wonderful' season at The Hawthorns.
The on-loan striker netted his tenth Barclays Premier League goal of the campaign in last week’s 2-0 victory at Liverpool.
And the former Anderlecht forward hopes to build on recent performances in the Baggies’ remaining 12 fixtures.
“I am very happy with the award,” said Lukaku.
“It means I was playing well but now I have to keep going.
“I am very happy with this award and I want to thank the fans, the players, my family, the gaffer and all the staff for their help and hopefully we can go on and get better results.
“I will enjoy this one but for me it is all about the team.
“I will do my best for the team and my team-mates and we can only get better.
“Hopefully, after a good result like last week at Liverpool we can keep going.
“January was a productive month for me, playing a lot of games and scoring a lot of goals, but we didn’t win as much as I wanted us to.
“Now is a turning point because we are sharp in training, most of the players are back fit and the competition is stronger, which means everyone is working harder because the pressure for spots is strong.
“That is a good sign for us and for the manager because he can make choices because the best players can play again.
“My time here so far has been wonderful, this year has been wonderful.
The 19-year-old believes Albion should now focus on finishing as high up the league table as possible – revealing, he was unsure of the Baggies’ potential before he arrived at The Hawthorns.
“I wasn’t sure we would be this high in the league but after three games I knew we were capable and I knew it was going to be good for me,” Lukaku added.
“The league is long and we have 12 games to go.
“Everything can change and now it’s up to us.
“We are in a good position and the European spots are right in front of us.
“They’re not far away and we have to be realistic and when we are two goals up we might
need to shut up at the back and try to get a third.
“We have the players to do it and I have a lot of confidence in the players here and I hope they have the same confidence in me.
“My vision is to be better, every game and every year, to improve personally and then hope my team end up as high as possible.
“With the qualities we have, I think we can make it and against the big clubs we were unlucky most of the time.
“I’m talking about Man City at home and Arsenal away when they got two penalties.
“That’s football but at the end of the day if we can make up for that in the next games we have then we can get there.”
Lukaku’s Anfield strike saw him become only the third Albion player to score ten or more Premier League goals in a season, after Robert Earnshaw (2004/05) and Peter Odemwingie (2010/11 & 2011/12).
And the Belgium international has now set his sights on bettering Odemwingie’s 2010/11 return of 15 goals – but insists the performance of the team is more important.
“We’ll see what happens,” he added.
“If those goals take us further up the table then I would love to do it.
“Records are there to be broken but the team is the most important thing and we have to win.
“On a Saturday after three o’clock we have to be there to win.
“If a team mate is in a good position to score I will give them the ball.
“I don’t have to score all the goals even if I want to score them all.
“I’m a striker and I live by scoring goals but the team is more important and if I score the team wins then that’s the best."