His chance conversion rate is down a little but to be fair our offense and the quality of the chances were creating are down as well. As I said, he's completely reliant on frequency and quality of service.
Correct. And there's a certain extent to which blaming our striker for being reliant on frequency and quality of service is diminishing the responsibility of the rest of the team, and the manager and staff involved in our tactics, in producing a fruitful attacking system. While we should certainly have individuals who are capable of producing in spite of the performance of our team, we should not look to populate a squad with players whose raw talent compensates for the lack of a cohesive team strategy. Producing chances for Lukaku is not difficult, and it's not as agricultural as GWAC. Lukaku could stand to be more self sufficient as well as the rest of the team helping him out more, but if anything the work he does in spite of our performance is designed to help other players succeed rather than himself. He frequently moves out wide right to compensate for the fact we don't have anyone out there, for example. I would have preferred Morata in the summer, but I also don't think the answer was simply to have signed somebody else. We'd just see them get isolated instead. Lukaku's been fine. And he'll produce more if the team produces more.
He's had one decent flick to Martial this season. That's it for assists with his head. And he's scored 5 goals with his head, and most of those are either poor loopers or should've been saved.
Then use the quote function, because I was the last person quoting stats in regard to the top performing players. Regardless, the term "a bad joke" is hardly conducive to civil discussion. You don't get to determine after all my years of posting here, how much credibility I have. I wasn't saying he was better at controlling the ball than those players, I said his stats were better (which is an objective fact) to give a bit of perspective. He's known for having a limited first touch and we've all noted it, but our perception of the frequency of it, as well as his stats for being dispossessed, is probably coloured a bit by confirmation bias. Again, I probably could have explained my point a bit better, but GTFO with talk about my "credibility".
Sanchez's presence should help get the best of Lukaku - Rooney www.espn.com/soccer/manchester-united/story/3374206/alexis-sanchez-will-get-best-from-romelu-lukaku-wayne-rooney
The aerial criticism of Lukaku is justified but is being overblown a bit. He doesn't have a lot of assists from headers not because he's bad at it but because he doesn't have people making runs off him. Far too often he's isolated up front. Where he's been weak is on long balls against CBs. Far too often he's easily beaten on long balls where we one would expect him to win a fair amount given his size and strength.
Go find me any 3 players in a top 5 league with more than 5 goals and 1 headed assist. This is ludicrous. He’s not ********ing Bierhoff. He’s not gonna score headed hat tricks.
We could put your ex-goal-keepin-ass out there, and you'd do a better job with directed knock downs and flicks.
it might have been if that someone else could create chances for themselves. too bad almost no one like that was available in the summer
20 goals in all competitions for Romelu Lukaku this season. ⚽🔴 pic.twitter.com/WfxDTlFw9b— Football Tweet ⚽ (@Football__Tweet) February 17, 2018 Romelu Lukaku has scored 20+ goals for the fourth season running ⚡️ pic.twitter.com/NoyhYs65Yn— B/R Football (@brfootball) February 17, 2018
Lukaku must show he can perform on the biggest stage. www.theguardian.com/football/2018/feb/18/romelu-lukaku-biggest-stages-manchester-united He had an excellent game over the weekend, but in truth, that's what he's renowned for. He'll be needed for United's 2 upcoming games: let's hope he shows up for them...
As I said a few weeks back, it is silly to say that you are (positively or negatively) surprised by Lukaku. The only relevant thing is that he is slightly underperforming xG in the league vs massive outperformance last year and slight outperformance over his career. That means another 4 goals in the league.
This. The only thing that needs to be said with regards to Lukaku's time here so far is that if you expected anything different (better or worse) than you didn't understand Lukaku as a player.
Speaking for myself, this is pretty much what was expected out of him, ie someone who will score his fair share of goals (especially against weaker oppo) and will end up with solid numbers even. But it still doesn't change the fact that for a striker of that price and at this level, he still leaves wanting alot more. The hope of course is that being a United player, he can overcome that, but that's as far as it goes. Which is why, despite the limited options of available strikers last summer, he was nowhere near the top of the list. Nothing has changed really there and if I end up being proved wrong, nothing will make me happier tbh...
Lukaku will always restrict us from turning into a top tier offense. Having him as our focal point puts a ceiling on the offense as a whole. But for the time being, he’s the least of our worries. We’ll never have a top tier offense with Jose at the helm anyway so when Lukaku becomes the problem we can address it. Until then, he’s a fine CF to lead to the line.
The problem is 2 prong really, with Jose not opening up the offense the way he should (and has done it in the past). I don't care about our attack being top tier: if it can be on he level of his Inter or his first Chelsea team, that's more than good enough for me. We've got the talent currently to make it work, especially since we've got Sanchez. Second, as decent/ok Lukaku is, he is not at the level of Drogba, Milito and even Costa or Benz at their best. The goal is that somehow he can reach that level, but based on what we've seen from him so far, it's still in the "holding onto faith" realm somewhat, even if he's still relatively young. I fully realize that when he was off his game or was upset about something, Costa could become useless, but when he was on, he was simply unplayable. Same as we've seen with Drogs, Milito. The only such moment consistently for Lukaku was early in the season and against mediocre oppo as well. But as mentioned, I still hold hope being that he is a United player, that he can even just come close to that level, provided that Jose finally decides to adopt a more expensive style of play. Just one tailored to our strengths (powerful and quick counter attacking play). Not asking him to do something new and that he's never done before: it's not asking too much, I think.
i am actually pleasantly surprised by lukaku's all around game. he doesn't look uncomfortable sliding to one of the flanks or dropping deep, he has an eye for picking out runners, his crossing is very good and his hold-up play/touch has drastically improved in the last few months. and it's not like he hasn't been scoring. the only thing is i'd like him to take more chances from outside the box - i recall that he scored a few screamers for everton last year. i really don't think we need to do anything with our #9 spot besides letting him grow... we're good for the next 5-6 years.
How could he not be near the top of the list? There were barely any options on that list. All with big question marks.
Lukaku was #3 or even 4 option for me (if Icardi could have been attainable, which admittedly would have been difficult). Aubameyang and Morata were always ahead of him, as far as I'm concerned. It never was a long list and, as mentioned, the number of viable candidates was pretty short in that department last summer.
I'd argue it was PEA and the rest, in no paricular order. And even some real questions about PEA too. It was just a bunch of good, not elite 9s each with faults. It was just a pick your poison. It's not fair or accurate to state he was nowhere near the top of the list. I've got no real issue with Lukaku. He's exactly what I figured.
Aubameyang is the ony who truly was an elite striker last summer for me. And I have no issues conceding that there were questions marks in pretty much every one else. Still my preference would have been for the 3 players previously mentioned. Lukaku has done alright in some measure since one of our biggest problems last season was our inability to score against poor teams. From that standpoint, he definitely is a plus. Yet for a striker of that price, still relatively young (still developing hopefully) and playing for United, I still hope we'll get to see more from him. That's all really.
we need to table all discussions on transfer fees, it's irrelevant at this point. we live in a world where virgil freaking van is going for 75 mil.
I guess so, but his price means still signifies the club has made a significant investment on him and he's our guy going forward, no matter what. As such, I'd hope he can end up not just meeting expectations, but going beyond it as well. That's really the point of bringing up his price.