Romelu Lukaku | Chelsea

B20 said:
You never actually made a prediction.
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Smart of me.

In all honesty, I was against the signing from the start, I was willing to go again with Havertz and Werner, but there was a period after he was announced that I kinda got lost in the sauce, and I had begun to talk myself into thinking it could be a good move.
 
Have to admit, I also thought he would do much better.

He arrived at Chelsea as the best version of himself, absolutely bullied Arsenal on his debut, holding up the ball, dominating with his physique, lean and athletic.

Then, with every week of not being coached by Conte, he went more and more into the parody version of himself.
Incredible how little he took with him of what he learned in Italy, once the initial confidence surge wore off.
 
B20 said:
You said he'd "storm 20 league goals".

You clearly overrated him.
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20 should have been a given for such a flat track bully in that Chelsea team.
Some were thinking 25-35 which was crazy.
 
This guy is something else! A technically-shocking footballer, and I can't wrap my head around how he has so many career goals. I think he's basically shite, to be blunt.

For me, the moment I turned on him was in Dec 2017 when Utd played City at Old Trafford. If we won, we'd have gone 2 points behind them, but this lump of a donkey gifted them 2 goals and we slipped 8 points back and that was that.
 
The Uncle of All Uncles said:
This guy is something else! A technically-shocking footballer, and I can't wrap my head around how he has so many career goals. I think he's basically shite, to be blunt.
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Good at being in the right place at the right time and is a decent finisher. Hes not as useless as we like to make out but he suffers from a fundamental issue when it comes to being an elite striker. He isn't aesthetically pleasing to watch. The top teams in the world and their fans want to watch players that are easy on the eye and Lukaku isn't that.

His numbers don't lie. Hes a good striker. His transfer fees don't lie. He just isn't nice to watch and needs a team to play a certain way to suit him.
 
B20 said:
So in the end, he scored 15 goals in 44 appearances, 8 of them in the league (from 26 appearances), 1 of which was a penalty.

Let's see how the experts fared in their predictions from august:






















@BusbyMalone and @cyberman did well. @Cloud7 did not revisit his take at the end of the season.
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I get my predictions wrong so often I'm not even sure why I bother still making them :lol:
 
B20 said:
So in the end, he scored 15 goals in 44 appearances, 8 of them in the league (from 26 appearances), 1 of which was a penalty.

Let's see how the experts fared in their predictions from august:






















@BusbyMalone and @cyberman did well. @Cloud7 did not revisit his take at the end of the season.
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I make posts and I forget about them. I knew he would be crap when it mattered but I didn't think he would be so crap in the smaller games as well :lol: He even lost the one thing he was good at in his last stint in English football
 
B20 said:
So in the end, he scored 15 goals in 44 appearances, 8 of them in the league (from 26 appearances), 1 of which was a penalty.

Let's see how the experts fared in their predictions from august:






















@BusbyMalone and @cyberman did well. @Cloud7 did not revisit his take at the end of the season.
Click to expand...
Was always going to happen, I only said 16 because of Chelsea’s easy cup draws.
He’a so painfully insecure that his talk of being up there with Lewandowski etc would have him crawl back in his shell when his form dropped.
 
It’s not that stupid to predict he’d score 20 league goals. He’s done it before, scoring 25 for Everton… Vardy has been doing it regularly (it doesn’t make him worth 100M), it’s normal to expect Lukaku could do the same for Chelsea. Almost every single pundit made similar predictions, and it could have happened if he’d stayed fit and got to take the penalties. But stat-padding against Leeds and Norwich shouldn’t change much to the judgment over a player’s season. Scoring 20 goals doesn’t tell the whole story.
 
Well, I said 25 goals with some outstanding games and some god awful ones, especially in the big games.

...I got the god-awful performances bit right and that first game against Arsenal was a great performance to be fair, so was kinda right :lol:
 
harms said:
@2 man midfield wasn't far off with his one, was he?
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2 man midfield said:
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I still can’t believe he’s gone to two of the top clubs in the PL and the team who has used him correctly and got the best out of him is us. :lol:
 
SilentWitness said:
I still can’t believe he’s gone to two of the top clubs in the PL and the team who has used him correctly and got the best out of him is us. :lol:
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You had a decent team back then... He'd look much worse in your current squad.
 
B20 said:
So in the end, he scored 15 goals in 44 appearances, 8 of them in the league (from 26 appearances), 1 of which was a penalty.

Let's see how the experts fared in their predictions from august:
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This part of my prediction wasn't so terrible:

They should have signed a target man to play alongside Werner. Tuchel is making the same mistake Mourinho did if he thinks Lukaku can hold up the ball.

This part has aged considerably less well:

That being said, he'll score 25+ goals in all comps and the fee won't look so bad (until someone signs a superior player, seven years his junior, for €50m less next summer - hopefully that someone is United). :wenger:
 
Telegraph claiming Boehly has told TT he has full control over incomings and outgoings, and they'll do everything possible to get in whoever he wants and move out who he doesnt want.

So, I think Lukaku's hopes of going back to Inter have just increased.
 
SilentWitness said:
I still can’t believe he’s gone to two of the top clubs in the PL and the team who has used him correctly and got the best out of him is us. :lol:
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To be fair, he is made for bottom half football.
 
SilentWitness said:
We finished ahead of you in his first season with us!
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Which isn't something to brag about. :D

But seriously, yes you are the team that used his strength which is it use his long distance pace and poaching abilities. The issue being that better teams tend to face deeper blocks and Lukaku ends up having to use his weaknesses a bit too much, the biggest one being his shameful back to goal game.
 
TheReligion said:
Do you think there’s that same level of weight and expectancy playing in Italy for Inter ? Interesting
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There is likely more weight and expectations, Inter are a massive club in a country full of regine del dramma.
 
TheReligion said:
Do you think there’s that same level of weight and expectancy playing in Italy for Inter ? Interesting
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I think Inter fans and the club expect them to be competing for titles, yeah. Plus the pressure to be the first club to topple the Juventus stranglehold would have been quite large.

I just think both us and Inter used him correctly, with a strike partner that complements him and let’s him play with his athletic ability (pace and power with the ball) / his ability to be a poacher.

None of this target man nonsense that he’s below average at doing.
 
JPRouve said:
There is likely more weight and expectations, Inter are a massive club in a country full of regine del dramma.
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Can’t say I agree.

SilentWitness said:
I think Inter fans and the club expect them to be competing for titles, yeah. Plus the pressure to be the first club to topple the Juventus stranglehold would have been quite large.

I just think both us and Inter used him correctly, with a strike partner that complements him and let’s him play with his athletic ability (pace and power with the ball) / his ability to be a poacher.

None of this target man nonsense that he’s below average at doing.
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Do Belgium use him with a partner?

I think he’s been mentally weak myself. Also very unprofessional at times. No coincidence that both his big moves he’s blown himself and similar noise comes from him at both clubs.
 
TheReligion said:
Can’t say I agree.



Do Belgium use him with a partner?

I think he’s been mentally weak myself. Also very unprofessional at times. No coincidence that both his big moves he’s blown himself and similar noise comes from him at both clubs.
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Jose was in an uncharacteristically experimental mood for the first half of 17/18, and played a two up front with Lukaku on the right of Martial a few times. I particularly remember an away game in the Champions League (Moscow?) where it worked rather well.

All that came to an end around Christmas after he’d got his contract extension and retreated into the most risk-averse football imaginable.

Lukaku does seem to have a very fragile ego. High maintenance players are only worth persevering with if they’re really outstanding. He isn’t.
 
Revaulx said:
Jose was in an uncharacteristically experimental mood for the first half of 17/18, and played a two up front with Lukaku on the right of Martial a few times. I particularly remember an away game in the Champions League (Moscow?) where it worked rather well.

All that came to an end around Christmas after he’d got his contract extension and retreated into the most risk-averse football imaginable.

Lukaku does seem to have a very fragile ego. High maintenance players are only worth persevering with if they’re really outstanding. He isn’t.
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The first half of the second season always seems to be when Jose sides peak.

I feel it's the perfect sweetspot of players being well integrated into his methods but at the same time it's too early to be burned out by them.
 
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