That’s according to Tony Cascarino who says the Toffees should have ideally kept Lukaku or at least held out for a bigger price.

Manchester United secured his signature for around £75m early in the transfer window.

But as the summer progressed, transfer fees began to spiral and Everton could have arguably got a lot more for their prized asset.

Arsenal and Liverpool opted to hang onto Sanchez and Coutinho respectively.

And Cascarino is adamant Everton should have been similarly resistant to letting Lukaku leave.

He wrote in The Times: “Never mind all the signings that they made this summer, the most significant bit of business that Everton did was selling Romelu Lukaku.

“What a terrible decision that was. The recent transfer window proved that you don’t have to sell your best players, even if they want out.

“Arsenal kept Alexis Sanchez, Liverpool turned down more than £100m for Philippe Coutinho, right, and Southampton held on to Virgil van Dijk despite the player threatening to go on strike.

“Those teams deemed their stars to be irreplaceable so they kept hold of them. Lukaku was Everton’s star and he had left by early July.

“I would argue, given his talent, potential and importance to Everton, that Lukaku is worth more than either Sanchez or Coutinho and yet not only did they sell him, it now seems that Everton didn’t even get the market rate for the Belgium striker.

“Even if they had fought to keep him a little longer, then Neymar’s move to Paris Saint-Germain for nearly £200m would have seen Lukaku’s price double.

“Instead they got £75m for their best player and spent more than half of it on Gylfi Sigurdsson — that seemed like madness to me at the time and looks even worse now.

“Ronald Koeman’s side have shown a lack of fight and backbone on the pitch in recent matches.

“But perhaps that weakness started long before the season began with the way they rolled over and allowed one of Europe’s best young strikers to join a rival.”