Southampton 0 - Everton 3: Lukaku double sinks sorry Saints after jumping into the crowd



Romelu Lukaku scored twice in the first half

ROMELU LUKAKU scored twice and Ross Barkley sealed victory as Everton ran out comfortable 3-0 winners over Southampton at St Mary's.

 

The Belgian striker made quite an impression on the south coast after firing a powerful shot at a fan in the crowd before the game.

He immediately jumped into the crowd to apologise to the Saints fan in question but her joy immediately turned to despair as he headed the Toffees in front in the 22nd minute.

 

And he doubled the advantage just before half time after linking up with Barkley, who scored his second goal in two games to put some deserved gloss on the scoreline.

Lukaku started brightly and immediately drew Saints youngster Matt Targett into a cynical foul on the edge of the penalty area.

 

Lukaku headed Everton in front in the 22nd minute

Ros Barkley scored the third goal of the afternoon

Targett was shown a yellow card but was lucky to escape harsher punishment.

The home side actually started the better of the two sides, with Sadio Mane an early menace to Everton back line.

His touch let him down on a number of occasions, though, and he might have done better after reaching the byline and fired straight at Tim Howard when one on one.

Graziano Pelle was equally profligate when a delicious Dusan Tadic cross look easier to convert than head wide.

 

Romelu Lukaku hit a Southampton fan during the warm up. He went straight into the stand to apologise. What a gent pic.twitter.com/Q2gLdSDtE6

— BreatheSport (@BreatheSport) August 15, 2015

And they were punished almost immediately as Arouna Kone raced down the right to pick out Lukaku with a pin-point delivery and he headed back across into the far corner via the crossbar.

The hosts' defence had hardly covered themselves in glory and it got worse as Barkley exposed a huge hole to find Lukaku, who placed an easy finish beyond Maarten Stekelenburg.

Manager Ronald Koeman was back on the bench after injury and responded by introducing new signing Oriol Romeu.

 

He launched himself at James McCarthy and was shown yellow card three minutes into his first start.
It seemed to spark them into life but Everton's defence, marshalled superbly by Chelsea target John Stones, stood firm.
The possibility of another goal on the break loomed and it was up to England international Barkley to finish the job.
He cut in before firing into the far corner to cap a fine week after his goal against Watford last week and put the gloss on a superb afternoon for Everton.