Maybe so but the differences between both players are still pretty clear. Not to mention this is Morata's first season in the league as well. Bottom line, taking into account their overall abilities and how they would fit into our team, I would still take Morata without hesitation. That being said, of all the strikers that possibly were in play last summer, Aubameyang still would have been the first choice.
Lukaku has been working hard and has been surprisingly disruptive when pulled wide right. His goal tally isn't quite what it should be but when he gets a proper ball played to him I like his chances of scoring.
Could Lukaku be in a fight for his place? www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/premier-league/manchester-united/romelu-lukaku-faces-fight-to-remain-a-man-united-regular-36566980.html Jose has given Lukaku a lot of rope so far, and I imagine it will remain the case at least a while longer. But Sanchez's arrival definitely provides an extra option available to him. And if Jose is actually serious about improving the quality of our attacking play, it might be an option worth considering, especially if we don't see some marked progress from Lukaku in all dept. Still want to see Rashford deployed in a more central role also, even if it has to be as a backup for the time. His pace and movement could be a great match combined with Sanchez and Martial flanking him.
Lukaku has not been a disappointment for me. He is neither elite nor average and that's what his performances have been.
LMAO Hernandez? You are looking at the worst of his play and equating that to his entire game. You are shitting all over his play and ignoring that his introduction has coincided with the best production from the wing and SS positions post Ronaldo. He gives our guys more room to play in. His assists don't match his contribution either. His xA is phenomenal. Comparing him to Hernandez is lazy.
It's not lazy. It's was an exaggeration to make a point about my disappointment. Most of his barely decent stats come from our good start to the season, when he was playing how I expected (ie clinical and average in build up). The last 4 months (around 20 games) have been dire in terms of chance creation and he is a big part of the reason for that. His xA is far from phenomenal (how you can say that when we are clearly struggling as a team to create good chances baffles me). I'd say his xA is average at best. It's slightly better than Kane's and Aguero's, but his buildup and xG is much much worse. The reason you think his xA is so decent...is because he's so poor all round most games, that anything decent sticks in your head and you've accumulated them into something it clearly isn't. He needs to do better all round, simple as.
Lukaku clearly isn't performing as well as we expected. We expect streaks in strikers, but his barren form has gone on too long. He's due, well overdue actually, for a fantastic run of form. Perhaps the toon are the right antidote.
You don’t know how this works. His xA is better than Kane and Aguero who play in far better attacks. That’s important.
Actually, I was incorrect about Aguero. Aguero's xA is way better than both Kane and Lukaku's. Lukaku has the worst xA of any of our forward players. Which is fine, because he's the striker..he is at an average level for that part of his game. In no way is it exceptional.
Fair enough on xA. Earlier this season it was higher. I’m not worried about Lukaku though. He’s produced pretty much what I expected of him.
We signed a flat-track bully. I believe that's what the consensus was here at the time. In the last six competitive games, he has 4 goals and 2 assists. In his defence, his stats for bad touches and dispossession aren't bad. Salah, Aguero and Morata are all worse in those regards. He's also got solid shots on target stats in comparison to the other top forwards. He's limited and he's had a barren spell, but we've kept faith with far worse and got great dividends in the end.
As soon as you said Salah and Aguero are worse than Lukaku for bad touches.. ...you lost all credibility. No stats will convince me that that is ever true. I've watched all 3, and my own eyes tell me different. Look, he has shown glimpses of good play....but it's not been enough. The last 4 months are below average for a top 6 striker. I want him to succeed, I want him to push us forward. He has to be better or he is useless to us in the long term.
He's also been terrible with his head. Isn't winning 50/50's and can't put a header on target to save his life.
his shots on target tend to be at the keeper though unless they bulge the auld onion bag. it's fine to be precise but we need him to be accurate. the stats don't tell the whole story. overall i agree with you though he's been about par. 19 goals so far iirc. decent enough return
Goals and assists are not the whole story. He is not asked to be the sole goal scorer as he was for Everton. His runs open up space for others, look at Martials goals of late they all came from the middle of the pitch. He passing and crossing has improved immensely since he joined united. We are set up to be scoring by committee if he was the sole means of offense yea his stats would be sub par but that’s just not his role on this team.
Lukaku is still the team's leading goalscorer so his overall tally is nowhere near the issue. The problems are with the limitations in his game that were well known prior to us getting him and which have only been confirmed. His poor touch, the poor goal scoring record vs top sides and the fact that he is extremely service dependent, are but a few... Most accept and recognize that, with 19 goals overall so far he's done well enough (especially vs poor sides, which does suit us given our issues there in recent seasons), but watching him closely and consistently, he's still some ways off the best strikers we've seen at the club in recent years or what Jose is used to in the teams he's coached (and who have been the bedrock of his success with those clubs). And having paid premium money for him, that is the level expected of him There's nothing malicious or biased in those statements, those are simply the facts. And any attempts to bring up meaningless stats, to try and state he is better than some of the top strikers in the league, is a bad joke. Now, as previously stated, what does play in his favor is that he is still young all things considered and he seems to have the right attitude. So hopefully in time, he will improve to become the top level, unstoppable striker he is expected to be but he's clearly not there yet...
A bad joke, huh? And you wonder why you get in sh1t with people on this board? I didn't try and state any such thing. I said he was a limited flat-track bully. Just tried to offer a little perspective on some of his perceived weaknesses.
I don't get what all the discussion is about. He's been exactly what we thought he was to a tee. He's a clinical finisher that's good in the air and can overpower defenders. The drawbacks being his first touch is awful, he has limited involvement in the build up, and is completely reliant on service and creates limited chances for himself. What exactly about his performances have been surprising?
I really don't know why you're getting your panties in a wad since I clearly was not referring to you and your mention of Lukaku's recent record (last I checked, I don't see how that would be counted as a useless stat). But B and more to the point, after over 2yrs of here, I would think it obvious that "people giving me shit" (over nothing, with this being the latest example...), is par for the course at this juncture and has to be one of the least of my concerns. I do hope however that I can be forgiven for not being aware that you and your posts are the centre of the universe here and I invariably must have had you in mind wth my post above...
to be fair i think he means his aerial knock downs. they aren't great. he has little to work with with balls lumped long to him but he has a habit of heading them straight up in the air rather than cushioning down to any specific player. that said often times we are sat too deep and there is no one around him anyway. his technique could improve a fair bit though in that aspect
This is an issue that cropped up when Rudd played for us too. People lamented his inability to find teammates with headers. It was a wholly unrealistic expectation. The best method of finding a teammate with a header is to find them in space. Teams tend to pack the middle against us and the only real space is beyond the last defender. How often do our midfielders make those runs? How often do they make them to follow a ball to Lukaku? When you don’t have a decent target to aim for what exactly is the point of aiming a header? Lukaku wins more aerial duels than he loses. That makes him one of the top strikers in the league in that regard.