funny thing that we could get any of the premier league strikers who featured in this round and we would do better. can't imagine someone like andy gray or ashley barnes from burnley would do worse than Lukaku today and that's terrible not because they are bad strikers but because we really paid 75m for someone who is probably a midtable quality striker but ocassionally not even championship level. I believe there are strikers out there, we just have a shit scouting team...
9
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 45
- Goals
- 15
- Assists
- 3
- Yellow cards
- 5
- Status
Not entirely sure why this narrative is being repeated:
1) It wasn't the case today.
2) Part of what you're writing is due to his movement.
His match today is more or less summed up by the chance he screwed up in the 84th min, always 10 seconds too late to react. I'm happy to accept and defend some of his other issues, and him as a player in general, as he's obviously not a bad player in any way, but his performance today was so woeful it's difficult to comprehend it. Fluffing that header, lord almighty, thank god it was offside (barely), but that 84th min one, I've seen it over and over again, it's so horrible. He's just standing there, waiting for the ball while it's already in a pretty perfect position, it's just begging to be smashed into the back of the net, and a Wolverhampton defenders that's further away than Lukaku reacts quicker and gets there before Lukaku even moves. If that was Rashford, Jesus almighty how the reactions would be.
He'll probably bang in a few against Derby and he'll be "one of the best strikers in the world" again, unless Jose punishes him by benching him for the Derby match before starting him against West Ham.
good post, I think we should move on from using him as a striker, deploy him on the right as did R. Martinez to rotate whoever we get the next summer for RW. We should make Sanchez rotate with him up top till the end of the season, with Martial in the mix too but the Frenchman should really be playing as a LW and rotate with Rashford there. Interesting will be how good can lukaku get under a new manager post-mourinho and if he can get to a level where he can start for us regularly, unfortunately he shouldn't make a bench now with this attitude and form but will be interesting if we can use him and not totally waste the 75m.
For the striker to replace him I actually believe Mitrovic or Arnautovic could do it for us from January
Wonderful goal that, people really need to go and watch a few vids of his goal collections. He scored more than a few exceptional goals, much as Mockney explained, just had that extra level to his play compared to Lukaku. This against Coventry one of my favourites of his.
He could be frustrating with inconsistent finishing but he could create a chance out of nothing, razor sharp in his movement. Might have scored the best Utd goal in Europe ever as well, that Cole/Yorke joy against Barca at the Nou Camp
Also have a particular affection for the goals against Blackburn at 00:52 in this vid and Sheff Wed at 1:14. That latter one was in a loss and is unheralded but the instant lay off and movement, the first touch to open the space for the finish, just world class forward play, subtle brilliance.
Lukaku was trash today but it shows that we're too reliant on him for our own good.
We need better wingers if we insist on him being our focal point (he constantly needs to be fed chances to score), or a more dynamic striker if we want an interchangeable front three a la City and Pool.
Right now I think we're playing to the worst of everybody's strengths.
We need better wingers if we insist on him being our focal point (he constantly needs to be fed chances to score), or a more dynamic striker if we want an interchangeable front three a la City and Pool.
Right now I think we're playing to the worst of everybody's strengths.
Not just pretty lame, it's very lame. RVP can score goals week in week out against any teams playing next to Welbeck, Young, Valencia & Cleverley.
While Lukaku struggles to score in a world cup when he had Hazard & KDB behind him, all he did was scoring against Tunisia & Panama. He was talking about the Belgium team is better than us, well he wasn't wrong but we aren't good enough mainly because he's part of the main problem.
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Wonderful goal that, people really need to go and watch a few vids of his goal collections. He scored more than a few exceptional goals, much as Mockney explained, just had that extra level to his play compared to Lukaku. This against Coventry one of my favourites of his.
He could be frustrating with inconsistent finishing but he could create a chance out of nothing, razor sharp in his movement. Might have scored the best Utd goal in Europe ever as well, that Cole/Yorke joy against Barca at the Nou Camp
Also have a particular affection for the goals against Blackburn at 00:52 in this vid and Sheff Wed at 1:14. That latter one was in a loss and is unheralded but the instant lay off and movement, the first touch to open the space for the finish, just world class forward play, subtle brilliance.
Lukaku isn't scoring many of those
Is it true that Wolves played with a makeshift midfielder as a defender against us today?
He had ZERO shots on target.
He had ZERO shots on target.
The problem with playing him on the wing is he doesn't have the workrate for it. Neither the technique or knowledge for it. Imagine crossing the ball to him on the wing, I doubt he would even successfully control it 7/10 times. Sometimes he moves like he is wearing timberland boots.
He is fine up top. He just needs a new manager that can get the best out of him and not just expect him to play target man each game when it is pretty obvious he is terrible at it. Every game de gea boots it to him and he fails to control or lay it off each time.
I want to believe there is a quality player in there but with the way mourinho sets up the team he just lacks any contribution. he might score a goal or two but was probably inactive all game. That just isn't good enough for a 75 million striker.
Wonderful goal that, people really need to go and watch a few vids of his goal collections. He scored more than a few exceptional goals, much as Mockney explained, just had that extra level to his play compared to Lukaku. This against Coventry one of my favourites of his.
He could be frustrating with inconsistent finishing but he could create a chance out of nothing, razor sharp in his movement. Might have scored the best Utd goal in Europe ever as well, that Cole/Yorke joy against Barca at the Nou Camp
Also have a particular affection for the goals against Blackburn at 00:52 in this vid and Sheff Wed at 1:14. That latter one was in a loss and is unheralded but the instant lay off and movement, the first touch to open the space for the finish, just world class forward play, subtle brilliance.
Great footage there. Just to add, Cole also scored plenty of big, important goals - Newcastle home in 95/96, Arsenal away 96/97, Liverpool away 97/98, and then too many to cite from 98-00, although Tottenham at home in 98/99 is obviously his most important goal for us. And despite the stick he subsequently took following the West Ham performance in 95, it could be argued that we wouldn’t have been in with a chance on the final day if it wasn’t for Cole (Coventry away I think it is springs to mind). Great player, United legend.
You'd like to think Lukaku was our Plan B striker from the bench.
Comparisons with Andy Cole are ludicrous/insulting. Coley was brilliant.
Comparisons with Andy Cole are ludicrous/insulting. Coley was brilliant.
You sometimes find yourself wondering what exactly he is really good at. I mean he must be doing something right to accumulate the numbers he has, but it's really hard to find one outstanding facet of his game, one part where you say, 'ah, that's why spend 75 million on him.' I really want him to succeed as he strikes as being an impressive young man (hyper-polyglot and all,) and he certainly seems to have a good attitude on the pitch, but he just doesn't seem to have that x-factor quality that the likes of RVN, RVP, Rooney or even Zlaten in his one full year with us had. You see Chelsea slowly moving away from Morata (or at least that's my impression,) and you wonder if we wouldn't be wise to do the same.
Cole was deemed not good enough by a lot of United fans. Ole was rated higher by many. Fans have opinions and they’re fans for a reason.
Fans like to look at the cows in the other field as a great man once said.
Lukaku is a great striker when played correctly, but he will have a stinker every now and then. Against Wolves both he and Sanchez were awful, it happens.
And when it happens more than it doesn't, can they still be classed as 'great'?
You got what you paid for, an extremely flawed footballer but very good goalscorer, he is what he is. It will be interesting to see what your next manager after Jose does with him,had he came to us last summer Sarri would have likely benched if not ditched him at first glance and if you look for a manager who plays the United way i can't imagine him lasting very long with you guys either.
And Arsenal moved from Lacazette to Aubameyang - we need to get wise and get another option.
Would of preferred us to buy Timo Werner for a fraction of the price.
I agree - if our next manager likes good technical players the way Pep And Sarri do he won't see the light of day
As a club - I thought after the way RVN struggled with the technical tenacity of the likes of Ronaldo & Rooney whilst also adding Tevez a bit - I'd never had thought in general that our approach to football was to turn to a type of football that we as a club had moved forward from. Berbatov was the same.
This club needs to get back in tract and actually play with a group of forwards that interlink well with each other & also have the ability for a bit of individual brilliance.
It was the reason I wasn't particularly keen on Lukaku - saying that he could still be better utilized - as an actual part of a group of forwards - not a single striker.
This club needs to get back in tract and actually play with a group of forwards that interlink well with each other & also have the ability for a bit of individual brilliance.
It was the reason I wasn't particularly keen on Lukaku - saying that he could still be better utilized - as an actual part of a group of forwards - not a single striker.
Mournho's presence is the only thing that is protecting him. He'll be thrown away in no time by the next manager.
I've said it before but he's a slightly better version of Benteke...has a very poor touch for a professional footballer and will never score a worldie like the truly great strikers can/could.
Many of his goals come from him being a big, awkward hard to deal with player in the box. His goal last week was typical, throws himself about in the box and the ball goes in off his stomach. Don't think he knew too much about it and if he had tried to score it he probably would have missed!
He'll get goals, mostly against weaker teams when we win 3-0 or 4-0 but will rarely score a winner against a top team.
How many top European clubs would sign him if he was on the market?
You are absolutely correct. The service is abhorrently poor, embarrassing dirge. Still works his ring off for scraps though so I am happy there. Get that right side sorted - find some semblance of form for Sanchez and keep Fred/Pogba pushing up in behind and simmer that for a bit and lets see how he does and if he becomes a liability.
Not a hater as such but...
That is up there with the worst performance I've seen from a professional footballer.
United fans gave stick to Cole over the West Ham and Dortmund games? Cole missed chances but, this was on another level today. Absolute toss
That is up there with the worst performance I've seen from a professional footballer.
United fans gave stick to Cole over the West Ham and Dortmund games? Cole missed chances but, this was on another level today. Absolute toss
Bad performance. Also, we as a team are absolute shit at creating chances. The latter is the most important problem.
Whilst true in an overall sense, he was pathetic today
Not even talking about the bounce in the box, just the lazy demeanour, the offside miss, the amount of times he was caught offside when he didn't need to be, the amount of times he was dispossessed, his movement was diabolical. I'm an idiot but, our main threat was coming through the middle with Pogba and Fred and Lukaku never once dragged the centre defender away to create openings.
I don't disagree with this.
Few days ago Jose said Lukaku was the image of the team. Days like this that statement flatters no one
All he does is point to the space he wants the ball to be played which is a through pass. All the defender needs to do is stop it. He is not on the move at all. When Fellaini broke away and crossed the ball it was behind Lukaku. Lukaku should realise that was the only place Fellaini would cross because otherwise the defender who was ballside of Lukaku would clear it and it was too close to the keeper. All he needed was to peel away from the defender and he would have a clear chance.
That man is simply not good enough to be the leading striker of any top club. Simple. Yes he will score goals and Troy Deeney scores against top clubs too.
Surely a club of our size can afford a world class striker? Not a mediocre striker like Lukaku.
That man is simply not good enough to be the leading striker of any top club. Simple. Yes he will score goals and Troy Deeney scores against top clubs too.
Surely a club of our size can afford a world class striker? Not a mediocre striker like Lukaku.
Just like any other player, he needs to have challengers/other strikers to fight for the same place because so far he has been pretty indispensable from the first 11 by Mourinho. One could argue that he lacks pre-season and needs minutes to reach full fitness, but I think that is worse performance than few games before today. Mourinho just needs to drop off form Lukaku, just like he did with other players.
I don’t think he’s really like Cole that much at all if I’m honest. Everyone seems to disproportionately remember that one season where Cole was a bit shit (and yet still scored the deciding goal on the last day, and the winner in the FA semi) - partly because it was the iconic “you don’t win anything with kids”/Heroic Cantona return season, and partly cos Glenn Hoddle said a stupid thing - rather than literally every other season where he was consistently one of the best strikers and top scores, to the point where he’s STILL the 3rd highest all time scorer in the PL era, bettered only by Shearer and Rooney!
But because that memory lingers, and people like easy narratives, he’s used as a reference point for any forward whose perceived to misses chances, but who could possibly come good... despite the fact that he was always good (he scored a still record 42 the season before we bought him) and remained consistently good for pretty much his entire club career, bar that one season.
But yeah, anyway, Lukaku. Sadly, he isn’t Andy Cole. And Cole is on the low end of the strikers he’s been compared to in this thread.
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He should be dropped. Period. Give the others a chance for a couple of games at least.
People say we need to start playing to his feet instead of his head. He's awful with his feet. Very bad suggestion.
He’s a great striker, his stats back him up. Look at Kane this season, he’s been a tad awful, but probably the best striker in the world.
Not a Lukaku fan by any means, and was against signing him last summer, but he's a small fraction of the overall conundrum under current management, and at times cops a disproportional amount of flak (a lot of that indignation should be directed elsewhere). We knew who he was and what he offers or will offer in terms of his overall skillset after watching him for West Brom and Everton and the Belgian national team — he's someone who will score a fair amount of goals over the course of a season or qualifying campaign and help dispatch the opposition when the team is consistently creating a good amount of chances, keep the opposition centerbacks engaged to an extent, offer a mixture of mobility and stature, and work reasonably hard for the team (though he will have his ups, and downs where the issues are more pronounced) — he's not the most technically proficient, doesn't always perform when the going gets tough against higher caliber opposition (translates to Belgium as well), doesn't fit the profile of a traditional target man in terms of his hold-up or combination play, and there's a ceiling to what he does (which will impede him from reaching the elite tier) — all of that wasn't going to change on a fundamental level for someone who's in his mid 20s and has been playing at a first team level for close to a decade.
It's not his fault the management unwittingly envisions him as the second coming of Drogba or Costa in terms of what he's asked to do (even though he has more in common with someone like Higuaín, albeit weaker in terms of technique and less clinical, or perhaps McCarthy who won the Champions League at Porto under José), or that he's a seemingly immovable fixture in the starting XI, or that the attacking habitat around him isn't structured well enough and is in a perpetual state of flux, or that our combination play and overall attacking movement in systemic terms is below par — which makes it harder for the players to occupy good spaces and amplifies their individual flaws, or that United made him the second most expensive Premier League signing of all time — all of that is on the management. Almost every striker has days where their performance is woeful — Lukaku will be alright on most days and has already scored 4 in the league, and labeling him a donkey on a regular basis or treating him as a piñata to expend a sense of collective frustration (which is what happens in this performance thread) is unbecoming and unproductive. As an organisation United needs to make sure he's a bandage — a transitional player between eras when the club is fortifying or rebuilding (like Džeko for City, Gómez for Bayern though they were admittedly in a much better state than us) — and not the spearhead for the long haul, so the broader term onus is very much on the management and upper-tier decision-makers.
It's not his fault the management unwittingly envisions him as the second coming of Drogba or Costa in terms of what he's asked to do (even though he has more in common with someone like Higuaín, albeit weaker in terms of technique and less clinical, or perhaps McCarthy who won the Champions League at Porto under José), or that he's a seemingly immovable fixture in the starting XI, or that the attacking habitat around him isn't structured well enough and is in a perpetual state of flux, or that our combination play and overall attacking movement in systemic terms is below par — which makes it harder for the players to occupy good spaces and amplifies their individual flaws, or that United made him the second most expensive Premier League signing of all time — all of that is on the management. Almost every striker has days where their performance is woeful — Lukaku will be alright on most days and has already scored 4 in the league, and labeling him a donkey on a regular basis or treating him as a piñata to expend a sense of collective frustration (which is what happens in this performance thread) is unbecoming and unproductive. As an organisation United needs to make sure he's a bandage — a transitional player between eras when the club is fortifying or rebuilding (like Džeko for City, Gómez for Bayern though they were admittedly in a much better state than us) — and not the spearhead for the long haul, so the broader term onus is very much on the management and upper-tier decision-makers.
Of course though the player is critised it is the management at fault for buying him and continue playing him though he has been terrible. The main reason could be that Jose did try Rashford as the CF and he was terrible. The answer could be that the front three of Rashford, Martial and Sanchez are all players who can switch and play a technical level that Lukaku cannot play and hence be given a chance to gel together. No, but Jose never drops Lukaku and give the others a chance. He is not a top quality striker and you can mention any number of players in the PL who is as good or better than Lukaku. And also why are we obsessed with a target man? RVP, Rooney, were never target men yet we won the PL with them playing as strikers.
I never wonder that. I know. From at Everton. With Belgium at the World Cup.
He's best at running a player who is isolated against him using his pace and power.
Mourinho sticks him up front as a static target man. Completely the opposite.
Sell him and let's get Icardi.
Stop talking about his workrate. It is average!
Lukaku is not good enough to be a starter at a club like Manchester United . We need a world class striker. Maybe someone like Icardi could be available.
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