He's an awful footballer
9
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 45
- Goals
- 15
- Assists
- 3
- Yellow cards
- 5
- Status
We were finally starting to play a little this season, then Lukaku is fit again and we are back to having a lego block upfront.
He did his usual at the World Cup of scoring against the lower sides Panama and Tunisia and coming up short in the really big games.
And it's not beside the point, we paid £75m for him and he's scored in one big game.
No where near good enough.
The first footballer I have ever seen who points more than he makes runs.
Makes Berba and Ibra look mobile.
Makes Berba and Ibra look mobile.
He's a RW for me.
Maybe you missed his contribution in the Brazil game then...
We swapped him for Ibra and he helped us go from 6th to 2nd. You wont find a shortage of plaudits for Ibra though.
He is a ST that acknowledges the space on the right. It’s different starting in that position.
I don't hate him. I just think he's playing a style that doesn't suit him, his confidence is shot, his flaws exposed in this style of team - he is NOT a hold up man - Poor touch, poor execution, poor decision-making, poor nerve in big games with big moments (West Ham Away etc)
I just feel sorry for him. It's painful. The entire team changes when he is in it regardless of the problems of our midfield; for the worse.
Even if he recovers some modicum of form he will never really be an elite-level main striker with the acumen to know what to do at what time 9 times out of 10 and then have the ability to execute it. Prove me wrong Romelu; please prove us all wrong. Evolve.
You see bits and bobs of light in every match but he's simply not worthy enough to be starting the number of games he has. Mourinho would never afford other players this amount of leeway but as it's his signing Mou seems determined to play Lukaku into form by selecting him all the time; if Lukaku carries on as he is, he will be a large part of why mou has failed.
Intelligent man; Limited ability at the HIGHEST level.
Just look, despite the flaws, at Kane's progression - regularly holds the ball up drifts in and out between CB and CM and spreads and opens up play for runners either side. His finishing always leaves a bit to be desired but he creates so many chances with his movement.
I still want to see a front 2 of Lukaku and Morata.
I just feel sorry for him. It's painful. The entire team changes when he is in it regardless of the problems of our midfield; for the worse.
Even if he recovers some modicum of form he will never really be an elite-level main striker with the acumen to know what to do at what time 9 times out of 10 and then have the ability to execute it. Prove me wrong Romelu; please prove us all wrong. Evolve.
You see bits and bobs of light in every match but he's simply not worthy enough to be starting the number of games he has. Mourinho would never afford other players this amount of leeway but as it's his signing Mou seems determined to play Lukaku into form by selecting him all the time; if Lukaku carries on as he is, he will be a large part of why mou has failed.
Intelligent man; Limited ability at the HIGHEST level.
Just look, despite the flaws, at Kane's progression - regularly holds the ball up drifts in and out between CB and CM and spreads and opens up play for runners either side. His finishing always leaves a bit to be desired but he creates so many chances with his movement.
I still want to see a front 2 of Lukaku and Morata.
Ibra missed too many chances, as Lukaku does, but his all round game was streets ahead of Lukaku.
Lukaku isn't good enough for Utd at his best in my opinion, the Lukaku of 2018/2019 would be the worst player at a pub team level.
Lukaku's all round game has been horrible and he doesn't have the goals to cover that anymore.
btw comparisons to Drogba are lazy and do a disservice to Didier. Poor start in the PL and then just an incredibly astute, smart and brilliant striker in the modern era.
Ibra at Lukaku's age would have had Romelu on toast.
Ok and we finished 6th. We were better off with Lukaku up front.
Last bit is utter nonsense.
No it wasn't good enough. You're lowering the bar if you think there was nothing wrong yesterday. He wasn't moving and wasn't dragging centre backs left or right. There was one instance he held the ball up for Lingard in the 1st half but nothing for the rest of the match. He's got 4 of the top 6 least touches in games for a top 6 striker and that's not all down to poor delivery.
He is not garbage. Lukaku is a really good player when being used to his strengths.
What he is not is a #9 in a defensive counterattacking side that depends on him holding up the ball.
I actually thought his hold-up play was improving after christmas last year and he was good in the WC, but then playing for a more possession-oriented side which made him being able to play most of the games facing the opponents goal, not like for us: playing with his back against it.
But he has regressed this year hold-up play wise. And because of this he doesnt deserve a place in the team anymore. We would be better off sticking Fellaini upfront if we are going to play like this.
I blame Mourinho much more than Lukaku, who is being asked to play a role that he is not fit for.
Well he has dropped some weight and looked faster. What he still continues to display is a complete lack of fundamental football skills. He gives his team mates little to no confidence about football played on the ground.
You're talking absolute garbage.
i'm not saying Ibra was perfect, he wasn't but he was better than Lukaku.
We're currently 7th with a negative goal difference and it's almost December. Of course it's not all Lukaku's fault, but he's a major reason.
Maybe you're happy having a main striker going 11 games without a goal but I'm not.
How am I lowering the bar? The lad had one difficult chance and almost scored. The delivery is shit. The width is shit. When he occupies the CB’s and creates spaces imbetween the defenders other people need to capitalise as well. Why are we this far along and we still have zero actual wingers? Young put in 11 damn crosses and not a single successful one. Lukaku and Rashford looked dangerous briefly on the right but they are NOT wingers.
We cannot ask him to occupy the entire opposition backline. When there is space out wide we need to have real width, delivery and precision. We are wasting him by not having someone who can actually beat a man on the outside and put in quality crosses.
Whats garbage? Did we not go from 6th to 2nd? Yes or no? Ibra gets all these plaudits but he also hindered us by always dropping deep and not occupying the CB’s like Lukaku was doing last year. The space that creates in front of the striker is why Lingard found good form at number 10. He isn’t as silky as Ibra so this gets no attention.
Uh, IT actually worked a treat for us that season. Jose's first season with ibra is the most entertaining we've been post Ferguson era and the only issue we had was not finishing the numerous chances we had with opposition keepers playing out of their skin against us
Yeah it worked a treat and we finished 6th. We didn’t finish our chances and somehow Ibra is not to blame for that either.
Zlatan is one of the best #9s to have played the game the last 20 years. Up there with Drogba and Diego Costa. Its no coincidence that they all played for Mourinho btw.
Lukaku is not that type of a #9. Does not mean that he is garbage or whatever but he is not even close to Zlatan in that role.
Its also no coincidence that Lukaku has looked at his best for us when Mourinho has gone two up front, with Sanchez against Liverpool last year for example. It plays to his strenghts much, much better.
Im all for keeping Lukaku around and to give him a chance under a new manager and in a new system. But this insistance from Mourinho to keep playing him in a role that he is obviously not suited for is flabbergasting. It really is.
This is absolute nonsense
We also won two trophies with ibra up top against being trophyless with lukaku... By your own flawed metric, ibra>lukaku
Added to that is how we were so much better to watch compared to anytime with lukaku
Only downside to ibra was he missing so much chances but he also made the team create so much more than what we are getting under lukaku
My point is we do not see any blame attached to Ibra for us finishing 6th, but when we finish 2nd Lukaku gets no credit and is now made the scapegoat for this season. If we compare their positioning then Ibra dropping deep was hindering us. When Lukaku keeps his position higher up the pitch and allowed for players like Lingard to take up positions in dangerous areas we were far better off. Never do I see this being mentioned though. When Ibra decides to play where he wants and picks up random positions congesting other areas no one mentions it. People confuse this for more 'fluid' play.
I mean if Lukaku is fit for the FA Cup final we have a much better chance of winning it. We beat Ajax without Ibra as well, I'm sure Lukaku would handle himself in the Europa League. Unless people now want to claim that he isn't good enough for that either.
Anybody else sees finishing second as better than winning two trophies?
Anyone else see that we were actually better last season than the year before that? 14 more league goals with Lukaku up front compared to Ibra. 12 more points. Something isn't adding up.
He isn't an awful footballer but he is showing exactly what some of us worried about. His overall game is too poor to make up for the moments where he doesn't score and when he is in form he doesn't elevate the team overall performances. Lukaku is Mario Gomez mk2.
Funny how you're just fixated on stats and the league
I already conceded that we missed too many chances in ibra's season but we created much more and played better with zlatan than with lukaku up top
Anyways, we're just going round in circles here and for the record let me just state this. I admit that lukaku did well last season and I take nothing away from him
I just personally feel we played much better with zlatan, simple.
As of now, if you check my posts you'll see I haven't been one of those criticizing the guy as I feel it is Jose that is doing him a disservice by not using him correctly and then reinstating him to the starting line up when he hadn't earned it.. That is all on Jose
This is it for me. I was sat in Heathrow airport after being off the grid for a while and all of a sudden, he was a United player when the last time I'd checked it was Morata coming to us most likely. I said then, "one minute he looks unstoppable, the next game it feels like watching Heskey.."
That's what we've got really, so it was expected. I like him a lot as a bloke, and he has his uses but I now must agree with the older thread - we'll never win a title or major honour with Lukaku as our main striker.
I've seen him be a goal threat & I've seen him scoring. But I'd be struggling to say I've seen him play football terribly well other than doing the occasional good thing, a decent cross/pass when he's drifted right Made a yard & got a decent shot off from the edge of the box from time to time. But that's about it.
Best performance vs Burnley away when they were pushing on but only had 10 men.
He hasn't the quality & the assets he does have are not that often on display.
Acceptable in the first half season, scored a few goals, has now gone badly downhill.
Best performance vs Burnley away when they were pushing on but only had 10 men.
He hasn't the quality & the assets he does have are not that often on display.
Acceptable in the first half season, scored a few goals, has now gone badly downhill.
I remember Zlatan taking plenty of criticism on a weekly basis. I was critical of the chances he kept missing....however are you really positively comparing Lukaku with Zlatan ? He scored 16 goals last season. Wasn't great at all. Yet he's the reason we finished 2nd ?
He's just not a very good player, he'll score a decent amount of goals but gives you nothing else. He doesn't score a massive amount of goals and he doesn't score big goals against big teams.
Jose seemed to feel he was fit for FA Cup final...Lukaku decided to save himself to score goals against Panama.
Most players do move elsewhere if they are told they are not part of a managers plans, a Bogarde type situation really isn't that common. Lukaku without a doubt would leave United if dropped, he wouldn't accept backing up Diego Costa as a 21 yo, no chance will he take being dropped lying down as a 26 yo £75m player.
You're going too much defending this lad.
Zlatan dropping deep never hindered us. It was the logic around here that kept bashing him without any kind of sense but he was our play maker as much our striker. He was dropping to take the ball from midfield and get it wide before rushing forward to take his position up top, linking the midfield with the attack. He was doing 2 jobs in one. He's the main reason we played any good football this season. After his injury we played the last 2 months terribly and with some of our worst football under Mourinho.
Guaranteed he missed many chances but these were in 2 months, after that he went on a scoring run and was actually close to the top goal scorers in the league by end of December. Even when we were missing chances, the best football we played under Mourinho was with Zlatan up top.
Lukaku doesn't have any big role in us finishing second last season. He scored only 16 goals in the league, 6 of them were in the first 2 months, that means he scored a combined total of 10 goals in the 8 next months, that's with a rate close to 1 goal per month lol. He's not even more clinical than Zlatan and he ended up scoring less than him despite playing 4 games more.
So a striker that's not even that much clinical but with terrible holding up, terrible first touch and terrible close control. He has no business playing at a big club.
He isn't fat. He is just very heavy.
I think that he is actually working hard on the pitch but due to the weight, it is extremely cumbersome to move.
If he lost 10KG, I promise you, that he'd look far more energetic. If he lost 15kg, he'd be very energetic (his 1st touch would still suck, though).
I'm beginning to think exactly that.
I'd put Sanchez up front or if we are going long ball, put Fellaini. Lukaku is in really bad form right now and I just can't see him scoring (he may score 1 goal in 10 games, but that doesn't cut it).
I was not aware that he has gone quarter of a season, without scoring.
So he's 7 PL games (played / featured) without scoring.
Does anyone know what was Rom's longest PL goal drought before this one?
Does anyone know what was Rom's longest PL goal drought before this one?
He's always been a bit streaky hasn't he? Seem to remember him going on long goalless runs for Everton as well before finding form again.
I find this amusing. Ok, I have offered my explanation for our increase in goals, now you offer yours? We score more goals without Ibra. Lingard picked up goals at number 10 without Ibra to take that space. I would like to know what you think changed for us to score more goals and win more games.
Ibra got injured in March or something, and scored a lot of goals before this.
Ibra started 41 games, 4 subs - 28 goals 9 assists
Lukaku started 45 games , 7 subs - 28 goals 10 assists
The stats are close. Ibra played in the Europa, Lukaku played in the CL. Lukaku also got more out of someone like Lingard due to him not dropping deep and leaving the number 10 area open. Ibra would always leave his number 9 position. There were games where Lukaku didn't play last season and we looked toothless. Now all of a sudden people have forgot. We were better off with Lukaku as the number 9. We scored more in the league and went from 6th to 2nd.
Other players became more clinical, as simple as that. Martial had a terrible season in Zlatan's one due to several family issues and new manager. Zlatan wasn't the only one missing chances this season, Martial, Pogba, Lingard and Rashford missed loads.
We were creating, shooting and missing more chances with Zlatan up front than with Lukaku, as poven here :
https://www.premierleague.com/stats/top/clubs/big_chance_missed?se=79
https://www.premierleague.com/stats/top/clubs/total_scoring_att?se=79
https://www.premierleague.com/stats/top/clubs/total_scoring_att?se=54
https://www.premierleague.com/stats/top/clubs/big_chance_missed?se=54
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