Romelu Lukaku | Chelsea

But Vardy used to chase everything down before he got older and the other two are wide forwards? Ronaldo isn’t even tactical since we have Cavani who presses like a mad man from the front. The number 9s do generally press at snigger rate than wide forwards.
I’m not even having a go at Lukaku but I was told how much fitter he was and how he got his diet sorted and it turns out he doesn’t even do much without the ball. Plus it’s not as if you’re a counter attacking side with your back 3 so he doesn’t even run that much with the ball with how methodical you are when you attack.
It’s also striking how the every top team must press from the top tactical assessments looks to be bullshit


A Tweet about Ronaldo being the "worst" presser in the league and you post it in the Lukaku thread! Of course not! :lol:
 
basically the top teams don't press
Not necessarily. The top strikers tend not to, but the support cast does… Apart from ours. It’s no wonder we’re so lopsided with both Ronaldo, Greenwood AND Sancho being such passive pressers.
I had a brief look at this a month or so ago:
Decided to check and compare with our rivals instead of doing work for 10 mins:

City (Percentile only):
Foden - 60
De Bruyne - 59
Jesus - 55
Bernardo - 50
Torres - 40
Mahrez - 28
Grealish - 21
Sterling - 6

Liverpool:
Jota - 94
Firmino - 88
Salah - 51
Mane - 40

Chelsea:
Mount - 91
Ziyech - 70
Pulisic - 71
Havertz - 43
Werner - 29
Lukaku - 6

TLDR: we got some right lazy bastards in attack.
All our wide players should improve their work rate, at least the ones who will be staying at club.

This table shows how poor our young players are when it comes to work rate.

PositionPressuresPercentile
JamesWinger
21.59​
94​
BrunoAttacking mid
21.46​
93​
LingardWinger
21.14​
90​
CavaniForward
15.44​
64​
GreenwoodWinger
12.78​
22​
MartialForward
10.39​
12​
RashfordWinger
11.06​
10​
SanchoWinger
10.76​
8​
RonaldoForward
6.69​
1​
 
A Tweet about Ronaldo being the "worst" presser in the league and you post it in the Lukaku thread! Of course not! :lol:
Well we knew Ronaldo was a box player and couldn’t do much outside it when we bought him.
Lukaku is a genuine shock to me. Cavani presses, Jota and Firminho are high up as well as Jesus.
If it is tactical I wonder what Tuchel sees that the other top clubs with their 9s don’t.
 
You've also got Salah, Vardy and Son in the bottom half of that.

None of them are being lazy, it's how they're told to play to get the most out of them.

Having Ronaldo, Lukaku or Salah chasing shit down like Kante would be a monumental waste of their energy.
You’ll get no where with logic and common sense like that here son. We need more hyperbole, knee jerking and wild exaggeration! Ronaldo is trash, Lukaku worst in the league! Stats prove everything!

p.s - I enjoyed your post and concur.
 
Not necessarily. The top strikers tend not to, but the support cast does… Apart from ours. It’s no wonder we’re so lopsided with both Ronaldo, Greenwood AND Sancho being such passive pressers.
I had a brief look at this a month or so ago:

Those stats are brutal, and pretty much make a front 3 of Sancho, Greenwood and Ronaldo unusable. Disgraceful from the younger ones.
 
You've also got Salah, Vardy and Son in the bottom half of that.

None of them are being lazy, it's how they're told to play to get the most out of them.

Having Ronaldo, Lukaku or Salah chasing shit down like Kante would be a monumental waste of their energy.
Bottom half and yet twice as much as Lukaku. That stat is pretty damning regardless of how you look at this.

P.S. and yeah, we’re not ignoring Cristiano being a complete passenger.
 
He's a goalscorer but how three clubs have spent £75m, £70m and £98m on him is a mystery.
 
I was really surprised that Tuchel went for him as getting him in only to finish off the chances seems to be a bit shortsighted for a manager who I believe is always looking at the bigger picture.
Guardiola, Klopp, Nagelsmann etc. would not be interested as he is just not a good footballer and often hinders the flow of the game. Even Ole recognized it.

If I had to choose between Werner and him it would be Werner any day of the week for me, just hoping he starts finding the back of the net on a more regular basis.
 
Ronaldo is the worst presser in the league. Fair enough he is 36.

look who is third in that list.


That's moot to be fair, some players are given free reign not to press, not every team presses and being the Main Striker they could have been told to preserve that energy for the right time. Different team different approach is all.
 
I was really surprised that Tuchel went for him as getting him in only to finish off the chances seems to be a bit shortsighted for a manager who I believe is always looking at the bigger picture.
Guardiola, Klopp, Nagelsmann etc. would not be interested as he is just not a good footballer and often hinders the flow of the game. Even Ole recognized it.

If I had to choose between Werner and him it would be Werner any day of the week for me, just hoping he starts finding the back of the net on a more regular basis.

There is no bigger picture than "score 1 more than your opponent"

Purist sexist is only for armchair fans, real world manager wins first and bothers about good football second. Off course most of the times good footballs are in tandem with winning, but whatever or whoever score goals he's the right man for the job.

What good is a maradonna if he can't score?
 
Yeah it’s amazing how much Conte improved his heading, touch and link up play isn’t it.

And here we were thinking it was just the level of competition.

Stupid us.

Such a dumb statement. So what if he goes on a run of 10 straight games with a goal? Does that mean you’re the dumb one?

The best thing is to just evaluate his record and performances at the end of the season.
 
Such a dumb statement. So what if he goes on a run of 10 straight games with a goal? Does that mean you’re the dumb one?

The best thing is to just evaluate his record and performances at the end of the season.

Won’t happen but that’s beside the point really. Just pointing out how ridiculous many posts like the one below were shortly after his signing…

He has improved play with his back to goal and can now occupy the CB’s faced up or on the half turn. He’s a great header of the ball and his touch has improved tremendously to the point where he can hold up the ball when played into him. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, he has tremendous goal poacher instincts.

So who are these #9’s in the league better than Lukaku?

He’s the same player he was. A bit fitter but the same shite technique and mentality.
 

“The way I’m built – I’m quite big – everybody thinks I’m a sort of target man; just holding up the ball and being a goal poacher,”

“But I’ve never played that way and I hate it.

“My biggest strength is that I’m dangerous when I’m facing towards the goal because that’s when I rarely make wrong choices.
 
How the feck he could miss this, he's in the middle of the goal and it's 7 metres wise :lol:

09:14
 
“The way I’m built – I’m quite big – everybody thinks I’m a sort of target man; just holding up the ball and being a goal poacher,”

“But I’ve never played that way and I hate it.

“My biggest strength is that I’m dangerous when I’m facing towards the goal because that’s when I rarely make wrong choices.

This just doesn't make any sense. If he is not a target man, then in the modern game he needs to press the opposition when they're in possession as otherwise he is a complete passenger when his team are out of possession.....oh, wait.
 
Yeah it’s amazing how much Conte improved his heading, touch and link up play isn’t it.

And here we were thinking it was just the level of competition.

Stupid us.

There was never a point where I was convinced he was better than he was when he left us. When you looked at the goals he scored, the chances he missed, and his overall play, he was exactly the same at Inter as he was with us. The difference was the level of competition, and that Conte put together a coherent team all around that won the league. It wasn't because Lukaku became a different player.
 
Remember the ridiculous fawning when Chelsea re-signed him. Yes, the same player that was lambasted regularly when he was here.

The truth is, he's at least a level or so below being a top number 9. He has far too many deficiencies to his game, has consistency issues and a horrible mentality.
 
Remember the ridiculous fawning when Chelsea re-signed him.

Where was the ridiculous fawning? I've just read the first few pages and it's mostly people saying he'll score against minnows and go missing in big games.

A few people thought it would be a good signing for Chelsea but I can't see any "ridiculous fawning". Are you talking about on Twitter?
 
Where was the ridiculous fawning? I've just read the first few pages and it's mostly people saying he'll score against minnows and go missing in big games.

A few people thought it would be a good signing for Chelsea but I can't see any "ridiculous fawning". Are you talking about on Twitter?

Were quite a few claiming Conte had him coached up to world class. Saying he was a completely different player to the one we saw at United and that the poor touches, headers and general inconsistency would be a thing of the past.
 
Where was the ridiculous fawning? I've just read the first few pages and it's mostly people saying he'll score against minnows and go missing in big games.

A few people thought it would be a good signing for Chelsea but I can't see any "ridiculous fawning". Are you talking about on Twitter?
You're right. People said exactly this and that's literally exactly what he's done so far. He's still got his trampoline boots on but he's still a threat anywhere in the box.

He is a good signing for Chelsea, he's a different type of striker to what you have and can be really effective and score goals in most situations. If Tuchel can manage him and drop him when necessary, it just makes Chelsea harder to predict and stronger. He's not my cup of tea as a CF but he's on for ~20 PL goals this season at his current rate and you'd assume he'll have more joy in their fixtures coming up, Brentford, Norwich, Soton, Newcastle is a lovely little run.
 
Were quite a few claiming Conte had him coached up to world class. Saying he was a completely different player to the one we saw at United and that the poor touches, headers and general inconsistency would be a thing of the past.

I don't think there was "quite a few" saying that. Maybe in another thread I guess.
 
Where was the ridiculous fawning? I've just read the first few pages and it's mostly people saying he'll score against minnows and go missing in big games.

A few people thought it would be a good signing for Chelsea but I can't see any "ridiculous fawning". Are you talking about on Twitter?

General media making out this was the missing piece etc. Sky jizzing themselves the first Chelsea game of the season they showed, saying he was going to be fantastic. I had some convos with posters on here saying signing Lukaku put you lot ahead of us, and the likes.
 
He would do well to match his goals in his 1st season with United.
 
General media making out this was the missing piece etc. Sky jizzing themselves the first Chelsea game of the season they showed, saying he was going to be fantastic. I had some convos with posters on here saying signing Lukaku put you lot ahead of us, and the likes.
The media take was absolutely that he was Tuchel's missing piece and that he elevated Chelsea. No mention of his big game performances.
 
The media take was absolutely that he was Tuchel's missing piece and that he elevated Chelsea. No mention of his big game performances.

Aye, I have no idea how anyone could claim this transfer wasn't totally and utterly over-hyped by the wider media. I was honestly wondering whether I was reading about the same player I had to watch here for 2 seasons.
 
You were saying, @duffer

Quite a few zingers in there including comparisons to Drogba, Haaland and RvP amongst others. And you’d think Conte was some sort of mystic judging by some of the comments.

Turns out it was just the same player in a shit league.

I agree with the general point you're making but this Lukaku is a lot better than the version we signed from Everton. His hold up play is much better and he's lethal running in from the channels. He'll also be playing in a similar system to what he did at Inter and Belgium so the goal tally might be similar but his general game play is much better.
His target man abilities were well documented when played for inter he did struggle initially but he developed his game as target man a lot during last season.

Players benefitted lot when playing around Lukaku so why he contributed lot of assists and xga was lot higher too.
Conte absolutely threatened to drop Lukaku unless he learned to play with his back to goal. Youre talking nonsense if you think he doesnt know how to play like that anymore. It is the number one thing Conte made sure Lukaku had in his arsenal and you're in for the rude awakening if you think he is the same player as he left United. I watch majority of Inter Milan games due to my father being a massive fan.
Sorry to disappoint you but Lukaku’s all round game has improved from the time he was here and with the level of support he will get from his Chelsea team mates would only result to many many more goals for Chelsea, something they struggled to consistently do last season.
That Lukaku went on to massively improve, and turned into one of the very best strikers in the world is down to Conte's coaching and his own willingness to put in the work
The issue with Lukaku is that we got the worst version of him and Chelsea are getting the best. Conte did a brilliant job with him. And of course we haven't upgraded in that position as you mention.
He has improved but overall he always was great. He has proven everywhere and internationally. The time he spend here looks like a one off not the norm.
He was. But Conte improved his qualities a lot.
I also don't necessarily think RVP was better with his back to goal than the current iteration of Lukaku - my recollection of RVP is that he was far more clever with his movements and far better at making decisions quickly especially when facing up an opposition defender.
I was one of his biggest critics when he was here, and I don't like him at all. But imo he's been improving his game especially his first touch, hold up and linking.
I see a lot of similarity between today's Lukaku and prime Drogba - both very good "target" strikers, good finishing abilities, decent pace in short sprints, good aerial abilities, incredibly strong but limited creative skills. Prime Drogba had the better "first touch", better passing range, and contributed more to build-up play, but Lukaku appears stronger and may beat Drogba on pure finishing skills.
Neymar is not a striker, Mbappe and Haaland need to get out of their leagues and mature more before comparing them to Lukaku. As it stands this very moment, Lukaku is ahead of both Haaland and Mbappe. Nothing to do with the future potential because an injury can ruin a career, talking about this very moment, and Lukaku is ahead of both.
But that’s just it you’re wrong. He’s not bad at most things you expect from a goal scorer. He has improved play with his back to goal and can now occupy the CB’s faced up or on the half turn. He’s a great header of the ball and his touch has improved tremendously to the point where he can hold up the ball when played into him. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, he has tremendous goal poacher instincts.

So who are these #9’s in the league better than Lukaku?
 
You were saying, @duffer

Quite a few zingers in there including comparisons to Drogba, Haaland and RvP amongst others. And you’d think Conte was some sort of mystic judging by some of the comments.

Turns out it was just the same player in a shit league.
Not really. He's having a good season.
 
You were saying, @duffer

Quite a few zingers in there including comparisons to Drogba, Haaland and RvP amongst others. And you’d think Conte was some sort of mystic judging by some of the comments.

Turns out it was just the same player in a shit league.

If you think "Conte has improved his qualities a lot" is "ridiculous fawning" then fair enough.

None of those posts seem like ridiculous fawning to me. Overrating him a bit? Some of them sure.