Lukaku's first touch



Just finished watching the video above. I think his touch looks a bit hesitant, maybe he's aware of all the fuss that's been made of it and is trying too hard. Doesn't look natural, I guess is what I'm saying.

There are a few clips in the video where it's fired into his feet and he turns with one touch without thinking about it, which is nice to see. On the flipside you have a few poor misplaced or inefficient touches and even the likes of the one right before he scores the goal which look a bit dodgy.
 
What fuss? Its only this forum that's going overboard with this nonsense
 
I couldnt give a toss about his first touch. If he scores 27+ goals next season i wouldnt mind his first touch landing on the moon. Only job is to finish chances doesnt matter if he scores from 32 headers. The club needs a good Prem season and i dont care if all our players have long passes. Just score goals win games and we ll talk about first touches next season.
 
This thread is going to be an almighty monster by the end of the season with the points already covered in the first 8 pages continuously regurgitated depending on results. Can we just accept that his first touch leaves a lot to be desired, but that he's got more than enough other qualities to compensate for this?
 
Robbie Boy said:
You're not allowed to say that. If you want to put the words Lakaku and touch into the same sentence, then it's mandatory to put a word like 'shit' or 'poor' in there too. :nono:
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Could I get away with lucky? It was a lucky touch that set up the goal and a fluke he managed to put the keeper on his arse for his own.
 
Do people actually rate his touch based on two preseason worse than friendly games? Fletcher was our best player in the preseason before last, and he was completely lost once serious football started.
 
Keep saying something enough, and eventually you'll believe it.

'Flat track bully', 'crap 1st touch', 'can't link up play' etc...

Smacks of laziness and sheep like programming to me.
 
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Problem-free Philosophy said:
Just finished watching the video above. I think his touch looks a bit hesitant, maybe he's aware of all the fuss that's been made of it and is trying too hard. Doesn't look natural, I guess is what I'm saying.

There are a few clips in the video where it's fired into his feet and he turns with one touch without thinking about it, which is nice to see. On the flipside you have a few poor misplaced or inefficient touches and even the likes of the one right before he scores the goal which look a bit dodgy.
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Looks to me like he simply needs a second to control the ball. Doesn't look that bad against a MSL team, but I reckon a good opponent would find ways to exploit that.


Also if you want to find a stereotypical poacher for comparison I'd take Mario Gomez, whose minutes/goals ratio was below 100 minutes per goal over all competitions for Bayern (and actually a bit better than G. Müller's) but who was shown the door regardless, because if you want to win the CL that alone isn't enough.
 
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In my understanding on Whoscored stats
Dispossessed - When a player looses a ball when he is in possession of it. Mostly dribblers has this stat high. As they try dribbling more, they loose it more. When a player whose dribbles per game is low but this stat is high means he is a very poor dribbler and gets dispossessed easily. This stat has to be seen in conjunction with the dribbles per game stat although it is not exclusive to being dispossessed when dribbling.

UnstableTouch - This is when he is passed to by his teammates and he loses the ball due to not controlling it properly. It may be little misleading when a player who is having very good first touch and technical ability and hence his teammates passes to him in congested space a lot and he loses it proportionally more as they wont pass it to a player who is technically poor in those areas. Exclusively attacking players in attacking third will have this stat high compared to midfielders and defenders. Hence it doesn't mean defenders has better touch who has less unstable touches compared to striker.

Whoscored stats are based on matches rather than 90 mins. So it is skewed when a player is a bit part player who played only few mins as subs in many matches.

Rooney dribbles 0.5 times a match and was dispossessed 1.5 times a match (based on skewed stats per matches 25 instead of 17 90mins match)

Based on Per 90mins stats
Rooney - Dribbles 0.77 - Dispossessed 2.25 - Unstable Touches 1.36 - Passing - 84.2%
Lukaku - Dribbles 1.73 - Dispossessed 2.45 - Unstable Touches 2.14 - Passing - 65.5%
Kane - Dribbles 1.38 - Dispossessed 1.7 - Unstable Touches 2.98 - Passing - 71.7%
Aguero - Dribbles 2.91 - Dispossessed 2.54 - Unstable Touches 2.91 - Passing - 82.4%
Zlatan - Dribbles 0.63 - Dispossessed 1.44 - Unstable Touches 2.07 - Passing - 73.6%

Touches: Lukaku's loosing the ball due to touches are no worse than any of the above strikers and similar to Zlatan. Rooney hardly played as a main striker(3.5 matches) hence his most touches in middle third cant be compared to other strikers.
Dribbling: Aguero is the best dribbler(obviously) and he is dispossessed less than his successful dribbles per game. Lukaku dribbles more but marginally Kane is good in choosing wisely and not loosing possession. Zlatan and Rooney doesn't dribble much but Rooney is worst of all in loosing the ball in compared to dribble attempts.
Passing: Rooney and Aguero are better. Lukaku is the worst and needs to improve. Considering the quality of teammates in final third, Zlatan and Kane passing were poor as well.

Overall: One stat is all that counts for a striker: Goals
Strengths of Lukaku are
*Conversion rate of big chances are pretty high and improved consistently in the last 3 years
*He scores quite a number of goals with his weaker right foot and headers as well.
*He is termed as a powerful poacher than a powerful targetman. The ability of getting into right place at right time is one quality which none of our other strikers has. That is the quality of big scorers.
 
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do.ob said:
Looks to me like he simply needs a second to control the ball. Doesn't look that bad against a MSL team, but I reckon a good opponent would find ways to exploit that.


Also if you want to find a stereotypical poacher for comparison I'd take Mario Gomez, whose minutes/goals ratio was below 100 minutes per goal over all competitions for Bayern (and actually a bit better than G. Müller's) but who was shown the door regardless, because if you want to win the CL that alone isn't enough.
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Didn't have a problem scoring in league for 4-5 seasons and he played against plenty of good opponents.

Also Lukaku is not just a poacher, he is more than that. Poacher is players like Hernandez, Lukaku has better overall game.
 
if besides his speed, goal scoring ability and strength he would've had a brilliant first touch, he would've been playing for Real or Barcelona last year, not Everton.

Lukaku is a great striker imho. Not a technical wizard, but he makes up for it.
 
I am oblivious too his first touch problem as I never watched him when he played for Everton. On that video at 2:53 though. Fair enough he was offside, but when Pogba passed to him he took it down beautifully and started a run. Mint first touch.
 
lococol said:
I am oblivious too his first touch problem as I never watched him when he played for Everton. On that video at 2:53 though. Fair enough he was offside, but when Pogba passed to him he took it down beautifully and started a run. Mint first touch.
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How've you never watched him at Everton?! You heard of the premier league pal
 
LennonNL said:
How've you never watched him at Everton?! You heard of the premier league pal
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I dont have time to watch all the clubs play. I just watch United on tv when we play. I have actually never seen him play before we bought him but I knew he was quality because of his stats and I read the RedCafe quite a bit. I never claimed to be an expert mate, I just love United.
 
lococol said:
I dont have time to watch all the clubs play. I just watch United on tv when we play. I have actually never seen him play before we bought him but I knew he was quality because of his stats and I read the RedCafe quite a bit. I never claimed to be an expert mate, I just love United.
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Fair does I'm just surprised because he was the second top scorer last year.
 
Stack said:
god help us before the world is over run by stat muppetry
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Huh?

It will be. The alternative is caftards claiming to have watched all of Lukaku's games.

It's not perfect, but it's a good summary of a player's characteristics. One can always go deeper by watching all the games the stats were distilled from.
 
UnrelatedPsuedo said:
The groundswell of stats driven narratives is the single worse thing to come out of America.

Worse than 'Cleats', 'Shut out' and 'Flop'.

They're a nation that's stats obsessed. It becomes far too reductive in football. European football seems to adopt a new one every single year.

It feels like copying off the stupidest kid in class.
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If anything Germany has been leading the way in terms of stats.
 
I feel sorry for Lukaku as he is going to be seen as Rooney's replacement. There are many diehard Rooney fans that just cant wait to pounce on him for every mistake that he makes or game that he does not score. He had better start the season firing on all cylinders or keep away from any websites such as ours.
 
markhrad said:
I feel sorry for Lukaku as he is going to be seen as Rooney's replacement. There are many diehard Rooney fans that just cant wait to pounce on him for every mistake that he makes or game that he does not score. He had better start the season firing on all cylinders or keep away from any websites such as ours.
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Most diehard Rooney fans seem to be the kind of fans that prefer loyalty to United players to rational analysis of their strengths and weaknesses, or indeed to hipster 'I'm a United fan but I'm clever so I tell everyone all our players are shite' grandstanding. I reckon they're the last ones who'll be on Lukaku's back too much. It's the ones who were quickest on the trigger to slag off Rooney who'll treat Lukaku the same way.
 
Don't give a feck if he still scores goals (he will).
 
The quality of his first touch only really matters if it hinders him from scoring or if it hurts our build up play and affects other players. I don't think it hurts his scoring ability but we have yet to see how it affects the rest of our attacking play.
 
Heres a stat for you. Fergie was interviewed after we had beaten Arsenal at their ground and the commentator said amongst other nonsense, 'So Alex Arsenal had 65% possession tonight', Fergie looked at him and said, 'Aye and we beat them 4-2'. See the only stat we need is we score more than the other team.
 
Brightonian said:
Most diehard Rooney fans seem to be the kind of fans that prefer loyalty to United players to rational analysis of their strengths and weaknesses, or indeed to hipster 'I'm a United fan but I'm clever so I tell everyone all our players are shite' grandstanding. I reckon they're the last ones who'll be on Lukaku's back too much. It's the ones who were quickest on the trigger to slag off Rooney who'll treat Lukaku the same way.
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We will see but either way he could be in for a rough time. Here is to hoping that he delivers from the first match of the season.
 
25 PL goals and he has a 'bad' first touch...

As ever, someone has exaggerated the fact he doesn't have the silky touch of Berba or Ibra and suddenly he's effectively a Sunday league player who somehow scores loads of goals.
 
MV12 said:
Keep saying something enough, and eventually you'll believe it.

'Flat track bully', 'crap 1st touch', 'can't link up play' etc...

Smacks of laziness and sheep like programming to me.
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At least "needs to bulk up" will not be spat out on automatic about Lukaku
 
I don't think the OP really should get this much attention, but now that it has, I think it's also important to think about how unorthodox Lukaku is.

You'll have a hard time defending against strength and unorthodox ways of movement - This is a strength in many good dribblers and players: Antonio from West Ham, Mané at Liverpool (at times), Nani with his turning to one side all of a sudden.

It's really hard to practice against for a defender. It can be a good thing too.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I guess this is the sort or ludicrously over the top nit-picking he'll get all season because of this thread.

Another good performance from the big man today. Quality contribution to the opener and took his goal superbly. His all round game looks very good. Delighted with what he's shown so far.
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How is it nit picking to watch a game and observe someone's touch? Not once did I say it's going to be a problem for us or that he had a bad game. In fact I made the point that the passes he did mess up with his first touch were likely down to not knowing his team mates well enough yet.
 
So instinctive is his finishing he won't even need a good first touch.

He's going to score loads of goals for us this season. That's all that matters.
 
P-Nut0712 said:
How is it nit picking to watch a game and observe someone's touch? Not once did I say it's going to be a problem for us or that he had a bad game. In fact I made the point that the passes he did mess up with his first touch were likely down to not knowing his team mates well enough yet.
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It's the micro-analysis of a single element of his game that seems over the top. But I guess it's inevitable, since this thread got legs.
 
ROFLUTION said:
At least "needs to bulk up" will not be spat out on automatic about Lukaku
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All in good time mate.

Once the "bad-touch" movement has been proven illegitimate we'll move on to something else. Such as "he needs to bulk up" or how poorly he executes the "dab" dance.
 
Random Task said:
All in good time mate.

Once the "bad-touch" movement has been proven illegitimate we'll move on to something else. Such as "he needs to bulk up" or how poorly he executes the "dab" dance.
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I'll take "lack of agility due to his size".
 
Pogue Mahone said:
It's the micro-analysis of a single element of his game that seems over the top. But I guess it's inevitable, since this thread got legs.
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I didn't notice it due to this thread though I noticed it due to the amount of times the ball he played was just behind his man.
 
Fact is that even if the more gloomy predictions turn out to be right, there’s no reason to doubt he’ll improve us significantly.

By which I mean the following: A player who scores consistently against “lesser” teams in the PL is worth his weight in gold if he keeps doing just that (scoring against “lesser” teams) for a title contender.

You win the league by not dropping points against “lesser” teams.

Long-term, it will obviously be a problem if it turns out that he can’t quite cut the mustard against the cream of Europe, but there you go - cross that bridge if and when. We realistically need to strengthen our current starting XI considerably both here and there in order to become a European powerhouse again.
 
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