Romelu Lukaku image 9

Romelu Lukaku Belgium flag

2018-19 Performances


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4.8 Season Average Rating
Appearances
45
Goals
15
Assists
3
Yellow cards
5
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Is it just me or has he put on a couple of stone in muscle recently? He's always been built- don't get me wrong- but he looks like a tank at the minute. Seems to be slowing him down! Where's the Lukaku at Everton that would dribble with pace past players before smashing the ball into the net??

It's just you. First few seconds he isn't that fast but on a longer distance he is unbelievable. Just think on the sprint vs Chelsea at the end of the game. Or against Burnley where he outpaced their defence a few times after Rashford got the red card and Pog just kicked the ball forward every time.
 
If Lukaku becomes a bit more pro-active in the D, he would go up another level. He is a bit too reactive in my opinion. He waits for the pass to be made and then reacts to it rather than anticipate the pass.
 
He's now scored more Premier League goals than Didier Drogba. If we can improve our quality - hopefully Dalot will play a lot - then he'll be a candidate for the Golden Boot
 
I thought he played fine last night, played the good ball to Rashford that he mis controlled.
it also seemed like he was making great runs in literal acres of space, only for Martial,Rashford,Mata etc to mess up the simple ball through to him.
Lukaku gets semi-rightfully slated for his touch, but over the course of the season these through balls need to be finding him on the counter.
 
He's now scored more Premier League goals than Didier Drogba. If we can improve our quality - hopefully Dalot will play a lot - then he'll be a candidate for the Golden Boot

This argument doesn't hold up at all. You are kind of saying any player in the world would deliver the goods if they only got the perfect ball, every time. It doesn't work like that - it works both ways. A striker is there to pounce, but he is also there to make his team better, getting into the right positions, doing the unexpected, open room for others, create space and so on. We're Manchester United, not West Ham or Cardiff - we create lots of attacks. The better the striker, the easier it gets for our other players to find him and create chances every game. Perhaps we are creating fewer chances than we would like to due to playing style, naturally you're concluding that he would score more if given more chances. What you're excluding is that chances also happen because of the job the striker is doing, or not doing which is my point. What if Sanchez has the ball in a perfect position for a through-ball to Lukaku, but for whatever reason he doesn't make the obvious run or effort. That scenario doesn't get included in our stats and it's down to poor work from the striker, not the ones supplying him. If there are no runs or initiatives, if you're hiding behind the defender, there will be no goal.

I would say Lukaku is pretty good at getting at the end of crosses in established attacks, for example when we are box-playing and swinging crosses in (Young and Sanchez are good at this in particular). I would call them typical Championship-goals, chaos-goals where it's so important to read the cross/intention and head the ball into the net. I would also say he is very poor at scoring goals that are not tap-ins or headers inside the box. How often do we see him striking from distance or from strange angles a la Kane or Salah? I also miss those goals where he can control the ball outside the box, skip past a player or two and smash it into the net, very often he makes an obvious touch and hits the defender coming in. Way too easy to read. Lukaku won't get the golden boot as long as Aguero and Kane are fit for 35+ games - his game isn't good enough to get those extra goals needed to beat them.
 
This argument doesn't hold up at all. You are kind of saying any player in the world would deliver the goods if they only got the perfect ball, every time. It doesn't work like that - it works both ways. A striker is there to pounce, but he is also there to make his team better, getting into the right positions, doing the unexpected, open room for others, create space and so on. We're Manchester United, not West Ham or Cardiff - we create lots of attacks. The better the striker, the easier it gets for our other players to find him and create chances every game. Perhaps we are creating fewer chances than we would like to due to playing style, naturally you're concluding that he would score more if given more chances. What you're excluding is that chances also happen because of the job the striker is doing, or not doing which is my point. What if Sanchez has the ball in a perfect position for a through-ball to Lukaku, but for whatever reason he doesn't make the obvious run or effort. That scenario doesn't get included in our stats and it's down to poor work from the striker, not the ones supplying him. If there are no runs or initiatives, if you're hiding behind the defender, there will be no goal.

I would say Lukaku is pretty good at getting at the end of crosses in established attacks, for example when we are box-playing and swinging crosses in (Young and Sanchez are good at this in particular). I would call them typical Championship-goals, chaos-goals where it's so important to read the cross/intention and head the ball into the net. I would also say he is very poor at scoring goals that are not tap-ins or headers inside the box. How often do we see him striking from distance or from strange angles a la Kane or Salah? I also miss those goals where he can control the ball outside the box, skip past a player or two and smash it into the net, very often he makes an obvious touch and hits the defender coming in. Way too easy to read. Lukaku won't get the golden boot as long as Aguero and Kane are fit for 35+ games - his game isn't good enough to get those extra goals needed to beat them.

Not only did Lukaku recieve chances at a slower rate than the other top PL strikers last year, he also recieved them at a slower rate than he did in his final year at Everton. The idea that he's to blame for the lack of chances he has recieved for most of the time here largely doesn't hold up, unless you think he's just coincidentally become worse at all those things upon arriving here.
 
Remember seeing him at his best playing together with Bolasie for Everton. They struck a fantastic partnership together. He's unrecognizable in a utd shirt imo although decent. So have we got a Bolasie with us? Probably not!
 
Lukaku didn't miss many chances last season. His conversion rate was good but overall the number of chances he had for a United striker was low. This is mainly down to the service and also to him - not making the runs or creating them out of nothing. I agree I'm sure he could do more and he doesn't get many out of nothing but if there is one thing I could improve out of our game is the quality of the crossing. From the right last season totally non-existent and only the odd cut-back on to his right from Young. I believe with Shaw and Dalot this will improve and we'll see more from Rom. anyone can see he is techically not as good as Kane or Aguero but he's more powerful and better in the air. He should get 30+ a season in the Prem
 
Not sure what Lukaku's comments mean or if they have been misinterpreted. But why would you attack attack and attack only till your score your first goal? Is this the United mentality now? Score one goal and sit back and wait for the opposition to come out before counter attacking? We aren't really that good on counters anyway. The below quote is taken from the United website.

”It’s about dominating, and not sitting back and trying to defend,” he told United Review, the official matchday programme. “We need to dominate and try to kill games as soon as possible. That’s what we have to do, shoot from everywhere we can, and attack, attack, attack until we score the first goal and that’s what we’ll be trying to do in every game."
 
Not sure what Lukaku's comments mean or if they have been misinterpreted. But why would you attack attack and attack only till your score your first goal? Is this the United mentality now? Score one goal and sit back and wait for the opposition to come out before counter attacking? We aren't really that good on counters anyway. The below quote is taken from the United website.

”It’s about dominating, and not sitting back and trying to defend,” he told United Review, the official matchday programme. “We need to dominate and try to kill games as soon as possible. That’s what we have to do, shoot from everywhere we can, and attack, attack, attack until we score the first goal and that’s what we’ll be trying to do in every game."

You're actually the one misinterpreting it. That's a very weird way of reading this quote.
 
Man Utd 1:1 Wolves
Absolutely stank up the gaff today. Probably the least technical number 9 I've ever seen at United. Why he waited for the ball to come down in the box instead of striking it I'll never know.
 
Maybe now people will open their eyes and look past his special character. He’s mid table striker and Everton was his maximum level, get rid please.
 
I'd love to defend him, but his performance today was absolutely criminal, constantly on his back heels and every time the ball was played close to him he reacted too slowly, easy defending against him today
 
Woeful. The reason he talks about hard work and attitude is because he has nothing else to offer. Absolute donkey of a player.
 
Honestly the faster we upgrade on him the better. Can't believe how anyone can still feel he's the way going forward.

The excuse of him not getting chances is pretty lame. He's part of the problem for this. His rubbish movement, crap holding up and mistiming of all long balls are the cause of this. Zlatan was x10 in creativity.

Hopefully a top striker is available in summer. 75m wasted.
 
Had been getting into some good goalscoring form, but today was one of his worst games.
We barely created anything for him, and most balls into him just pinged straight back
 
He’s not on it this season so far. Rarely have I seen him so mute as in the last 2 games.
 
His worst game ever. Where's that hunger you showed in that story where you were gonna kill everyone.
 
Solskjaer, Cole, Yorke, RVP, RVN, Cantona...


Does Lukaku really belong in this company? I like the guy but we deserve a more complete striker at this club.
 
Honestly the faster we upgrade on him the better. Can't believe how anyone can still feel he's the way going forward.

The excuse of him not getting chances is pretty lame. He's part of the problem for this. His rubbish movement, crap holding up and mistiming of all long balls are the cause of this. Zlatan was x10 in creativity.

Hopefully a top striker is available in summer. 75m wasted.
Without mentioning his terrible knock downs and passing in the final third. Appreciate the effort but definitely not good enough
 
Yes Lukaku, that's a football headed straight at you 5 feet away from goal...

I dunno, maybe you might want to stick a leg out?
 
He scored some goals but still he was okay at best the last 3 games.

Today he was atrocious, Martial should play ahead of him.
 
Was awful today. Too many times he was on the back foot, and not ready to receive the pass.

Players like Pogba, Sanchez, Lingard want to fizz it in to the front man and follow their pass. Therefore, Lukaku needs to become a screen and simply just lay it off to them.

I still believe that to get the best out of him, we need a 10/second striker up with him. That way, he can make more runs out wide, and not always worry about being the focal point.
 
Absolutely stank up the gaff today. Probably the least technical number 9 I've ever seen at United. Why he waited for the ball to come down in the box instead of striking it I'll never know.

This.

Fellaini, Martial and De Gea seemed to be pretty pissed off at him, rightly so.
 
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