Across their Utd career, goal per min only, PL+CL:
Lukaku: 5142 min played, 27 goals, 190.5 min per goal.
Rashford: 7035 min played, 29 goals, 242.5 min per goal (this included his EL stats in 15/16 and 16/17 instead of UCL. If you want I can do a separate calculation based on EPL alone). I also fecked up the initial calculation for previous post, Rashford only played 1322 min combined in PL+CL this season, so his gpm works out to 264 min vs 261 min for Lukaku, still slightly lower, but there’s no ‘far better scoring record’.
Martial: 8602 min played, 38 goals, 226 min per goal (stats also include EL in 15/16 and 16/17).
So, yeah. Based on this season alone, Lukaku is equal to Rashford and worse than Martial solely on goal per min. Throughout their respective Utd career to date, he’s the best, but still very underwhelming for a sole striker (slightly under 1 goal per 2 games, as is my original contention. Respectable number for a 90s/early 00s centre forward, not now). When you also take into considersation the assist stats, his statistical edge against the other two vanished (which would be fair, since they spent most of their times on the wings, and him solely as striker).
In short, Lukaku has simply not been the answer to our offensive problem the way many people envisioned it. He performed adequately last season, still with huge question marks all over his general play, it’s impact on the team and his record against the top teams. This season, everything plummeted. My personal contention is that we’d have been much better off the last 2 years buying a good right winger/no.10 and develop Martial/Rashford in the striker role, despite not rating Rashford that highly myself. Going forward, either Lukaku improves his general play to a decent level while maintaining his striking record similar to 17/18 level, or improves his striking record to closer to 1 goal per game, or get sold. We can’t carry a player with non-exceptional scoring record and huge flaws in his game if we expect to seriously compete.