Football
Richard Jolly, ESPN.com writer 9y

Romelu Lukaku backed by Leighton Baines to impress at Everton

Leighton Baines shrugged off concerns about Romelu Lukaku's form and insisted Everton's record buy's goal against Aston Villa could set him off on a scoring spree.

Lukaku cost Everton 28 million pounds when he signed from Chelsea in the summer but went six games without a goal for club and country before netting in Saturday's 3-0 win over Aston Villa.

But left-back Baines takes heart from the Belgian's record during his loan spell at Goodison Park last season and the range of his skills.

He said: "Rom was great for us last season and has a really impressive goalscoring record in his time over here so we know goals aren't a problem, we just have to keep giving him opportunities.

"He is a goalscorer and he can score all different types of goals: left foot, right foot, [he is] good in the air, and he puts fear into defenders and him scoring goals is good for us because you need your strikers to score. We hope we will get him scoring goals because he is vital for us."

Baines set up Everton's other two goals with crosses for his fellow defenders Phil Jagielka and Seamus Coleman and took particular pleasure from the Irishman's strike.

He added: "That is not the first time that has happened this season, me knocking one across for Seamus. It was a great run from him, great desire to get in the box and there was a nice space for me to leave it in there and he's done everything to get on the end of it."

Everton had the Premier League's worst defensive record and kept only their second clean sheet of the season against Paul Lambert's team.

England international Baines said: "We have conceded some strange goals this season and I am not sure, if you look at it, we have given up many more chances than we would usually but for some reason we have been conceding.

"So it was nice to get back to normal and keeping a clean sheet is something we will look to replicate in the next few games."

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