Zlatan probably would've scored as many goals had he not suffered that horrific injury. Lukaku is hardly an improvement. He's faster but Zlatan has better technique, is more intelligent and better at link up play.
Lukaku's first touch
- Thread starter goldenballs
- Start date
Should have just stopped there, rather than going into some nonsensical conspiracy theory. The touch issue regarding him has been around for a while before United. It's probably exaggerated, but it's silly to act like it's something that only started a few days ago because he signed for United.It's a myth now. And an exaggerated one at that.
Haven't heard of any of this rubbish until he signed for United. When he was going to Chelsea, it was "United's missing out on the next Drogba"... can't stand the media and rival fans sometimes. Talk about deluded. Here you have a 24 year old who's close to 100 PL goals already but apparently it's a bad signing and a waste of moneyFeck me.
This thread is going to be bumped after every game for the next 5 years isn't it?
Not true at all. He's also spelled with a d.
Chances are this will get bumped every game he score too. Its just like that.
Who cares about his first touch, you don't get three points for trapping the ball.
So overblown. We've won the league 2 of the past 3 seasons with Diego Costa who also has a pretty poor first touch and loses the ball often.
A blessing in disguise as they say.
Check the headline of the thread.
Not sure if you consider or considered Costa as elite striker but his touch was as heavy as Lukaku's, I would say even worse sometimes. That didn't stop him scoring for fun for Atletico and Chelsea.
You may have to stay out of the match day thread for a whileHis touch isn't the huge worry anyway imo. His decision making is.
These stats aren't defining, however when taken not from one or few games, but the whole season instead they do tell their own story. Results of connecting these scores with pass completion data correspond with some of the conclusions in this thread, even coming from simply watching that Lukaku compilation. What I mean is that our new striker doesn't have great problems with receiving the ball, yet has some with recirculating it to his teammates. There is no hiding from the fact that at the very least he fares worse in comparison to his league counterparts.
Player: Dispossessed-UnstableTouch
Lukaku: 2.4 - 2.1
H.Kane: 1.6 - 2.8
Sanchez:3.4 - 2.5
Aguero: 3.0 - 3.0
D.Costa:3.4 - 3.1
Zlatan: 1.4 - 2.0
Player: Pass success percentage
Lukaku: 65.5%
H.Kane: 71.7%
Sanchez:73.6%
Aguero: 82.4%
D.Costa:75.2%
Zlatan: 73.6%
All of our cited striker transfer targets had some risks attached to them. We've decided on acquiring the guy who was most proven, yet not ideal.
It's only wise not to expect him to improve greatly, that's why we must focus on addressing other problematic parts in our offensive game, that is wing play which was really shit last season.
GerD Müller was the ultimate poacher. He was a great finisher, perhaps the best finisher of all-time. He had great positional awareness; he was always at the right place at the right time. And he was athletic.
However great he was, he lacked the technique, vision, and the dribbling skill of some of his more celebrated peers. He was definitely an average footballer.
What's with your tagline? Why would you do such a thing?
Lack of dribbling skills and flair is certainly true, but the 'average' part is more a widespread misconception about Müller than a fair description, imo.
Also apologies for the 'd' thing, that was unnecessary.
To get to your original point about Lukaku: I reckon that if he succeeds, it will be because he proves to be more than an average all-round footballer. Not sure about that yet, but we'll see how well he fits into Mourinho's concept.
Had Lukaku gone back to Chelsea none of these nonsenses about first touch would have been brought up but instead people would have been blasting Woodward or whoever else for failing to get him.
It's a Caf tradition, make up crap to complain about.
Not to mention this thread has the stink of an agenda. The level of revisionism being thrown around is ridiculous. Suddenly people want to act as if Zlatan was some sort of Xavi or Iniesta like playmaker and hardly lost the ball when in truth he was one of the most wasteful player we had last season.
We had games where he was messing up even the simplest of passes and his build up play was mostly miss than hit throughout the entire season. Had a couple of good game with his build up but generally was wasteful and his attempt at clever passes were mostly frustrating due to the fail ratio.
But that fact will get in the way of this random narrative where Lukaku is an utter donkey and will be replacing Zlatan, someone with Iniesta like play making skills and ball retention.
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Who is slagging him off?
Can I just make it abundantly clear, just in case you are unable to grasp my OP. I am not complaining and I have not got any aganda, let alone a stinky one. I came on here to ask for peoples opinions of the man, as I have no experience of watching him play. An Everton fan alerted me to his so called dodgy first touch and I wanted to know how true it is. Simples.
It's a worry and we would be making fun of it rightly or wrongly if he wasn't ours. However, it isn't a deal breaker. His other strengths can make up for it.
But how can you have such a bad first touch, you have been playing at quite a decent level for over 10 years. Your first touch also isnt physical related but I think has a lot to do with timing, positioning your foot and balancing yourself, is that really so hard to improve to an extant where you dont look like a wall?
There was a funny clip, I think it was against Hull City away early one, where he was dispossessed on 3 separate occasions in about 20-30 seconds.
Anyway, Rooney is technically miles better than Lukaku, that's unquestionable I think.
If Lakaku has a poor first touch and scores 25 or more for United, that's absolutely fine with me 
i doubt he was ready to receive the ball thereIf he bangs 25 goals in the league (without scoring more than 2 per game) he could have Mertesacker's touch. I don't care. The guy is here to score goals, not to control a ball or spread it left and right.
Seem to remember @Brwned I think went and watched a load of Müller videos and concluded that he was actually a fantastic footballer, a lot more than a poacher.
His second touch is sometimes a lunge at the ball after a poor first touch, which ends up in the back of the net.
Pretty bad.
Yup pretty much. Im dreading the reaction if we draw a game 0-0 and he misses a chance.
Damn right. Didn't seem to be much of an issue with the goal he scored at the Emptihad last season now did it?
This from a Chelsea fan. The whole Lukaku has a rubbish first touch is getting blown out of all proportion. The video of him in the United training session is making my blood boil every time I see it retweeted. Lets wait until he is scoring for fun next season and then see how many people are trying to make a big deal about his first touch. Its not about his first touch, its about his last touch. And that's the one that will have the ball in the back of the net hopefully.
Also we had Rooney play for us for years where his first touch would take him backwards a few yards ffs.
You can argue about his build-up play, hold-up play etc. and say it was significantly worse than someone like van Basten's, and that's fair. The fact is he's compared against the most complete strikers of all-time so it's always painted as a negative, which skews the picture somewhat.
Van Nistelrooy's hold-up play was significantly worse than van Basten's, yet many on here would still say it was exemplary when compared against his contemporaries. I'd say similar of Muller. He was a very clever player with very tidy technique across the board. Calling him just a poacher is just wrong, in my view. You don't need to spend a long time watching the great Germany and Bayern teams of his era to see the flowing, fluid football they played, and he was regularly involved in crafty, intricate one-twos in tight spaces.
In any case, what can't be argued is the quality of his first touch. It was exceptional. It was understated and he certainly had no art to his game, but a significant part of his goalscoring threat was his near-perfect first touch. Comparing Lukaku to him on that front is absolutely laughable.
Gert Duller?
I remember that
Lukaku: 2.4 + 2.1 = 4.5
H.Kane: 1.6 + 2.8 = 4.4
Sanchez: 3.4 + 2.5 = 5.9
Aguero: 3.0 + 3.0 = 6.0
D.Costa: 3.4 + 3.1 = 6.5
Zlatan: 1.4 + 2.0 = 3.4
In terms of losing the ball he seems to be about the same as Kane, much better than Sanchez, Aguero and Costa, and worse than Zlatan. Even with his worse pass completion stats I'm not sure how you can say that, overall, he's worse than his peers. (I'm not saying that he isn't - just that your stats don't support the conclusion.)
I genuinely don't think I've ever considered first touch as a key measurement of a good striker. More so I think a really poor first touch is worrying for any footballer, even a centre back, so it's not something to dismiss altogether.
I must be honest though, I think it's more impressive when a player can fulfil his role with blatant defects in his game. If he's as bad as people make out (i.e. "second touch is a tackle"), then it's even more impressive to me that he has that scoring rate.
I mean the clear solution is to tell Lukaku to shoot every time the ball is near him. Nevermind that pass/dribble shite.
I must be honest though, I think it's more impressive when a player can fulfil his role with blatant defects in his game. If he's as bad as people make out (i.e. "second touch is a tackle"), then it's even more impressive to me that he has that scoring rate.
I mean the clear solution is to tell Lukaku to shoot every time the ball is near him. Nevermind that pass/dribble shite.
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My dog could've controlled that better
Not even kidding, you should see him trap the ball. Actually better than Rooney at this point
"Unstable touch" is a new one to me. Do those stats mean that Lukaku has the second lowest number of "unstable touches" out of all those strikers?
His first touch is harder than his shot.
Yes. (It's one of the whoscored stats.) It's kind of ironic that Rooney, who was continuously castigated on the the Caf for his tendency to lose the ball and and his poor touch, was 1.5 and 0.9 on those statistics, and had an 84.2% completion rate.
Just a bit! Oh well. Another season where I'll be steering well clear of matchday threads...
I also reckon this thread will be getting bumped after every game where he doesn't score at least one goal.