Agree 100%.
There are also players who just don’t fit well at a specific club but do better at another club in the very same league.
Romelu Lukaku | Napoli watch
- Thread starter Samid
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There are also players who just don’t fit well at a specific club but do better at another club in the very same league.
This too. It's too complicated tbh. One thing that cannot be denied is that Lukaku is doing well for Inter. All the rest is just talk
The team results are not great this season though. Not sure Lukaku deserves more blame than anyone else, but it was a big fail in CL.
Also they have dropped a bit too many points in the league as well.
Indeed. I think it could be fairly argued that they had a point. Our football got progressively worse as the season progressed, particularly as Matic lost form, and Jose set the team up ever more defensively.
For a handful of games part way through the season (away to Moscow in the CL comes to mind) Jose set us up with Lukaku and Martial together up front. It seemed to suit both of them, and was actually not unpleasant to watch. He couldn't stop himself reverting to his horrible 4231 though.
In fact, if PL was so infinitely superior to the reast of the leagues as some think(not denying its the best as of now, btw), then how come other teams won CL and ELs quite a few times in recent years?
such a ridiculous analysis, with such a small sample.
when was the last time an Italian team won the CL?
All true, and irrelevant to the point
I specifically quoted the bit I replied to. And it is relevant. Haaland is better than lukaku. Haland is not world class yet. Ergo, Lukaku is not world class.
Not my point, and you know it.
He was fairly good in the first half of that season. Started with a flurry of goals, and then even when the goals dried up his all-round game was actually quite good for another month or two (I'm pretty sure he won our player of the month in November or December despite barely scoring). Obviously he fell away and was fairly average in the second half of that season though, but he'd shown enough that most of us were cautiously optimistic for the future.
Then he had that utter disaster of a second season...
the Italian league is weak compared to other leagues.
He started missing chances early on.
Stoke match was Round 5-6?
Last 10 min of the game and he's blasts the ball over from close range
2-2 full time - instead of going 2 points clear at the top we were level with city.
btw
this compilation is from his 1st season
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You can defo blame his big head for the CL
Seriously speaking, I think he is the last player you'd criticize for their league campaign. He's been good
The only way the ratio gets worse is if he stops scoring as many goals. That could happen but merely playing more games is not a factor that would trigger this.
An exceptional drop in form would have to occur and there is nothing to suggest that this is likely. So as economists would say, all things being equal, he is likely to maintain his good ratio even when he has played as many games.
In any case, a ratio like this is designed to eliminate the need for taking into account variables such as number of games a particular player has played. The idea is that once you have played enough games, the averages of your output whether it be by mean, median or mode, are enough to demonstrate your central tendencies or your true level.
That ratio is quite useful despite what you might think about Lukaku.
Batshuayi's record for Belgium is 32 games/21 goals - that's 0.65 goals per game ratio
Lukaku's record for Belgium is 89 games/57 goals - that's a 0.64 goal ratio
Batshuayi's goal per minute ratio is a goal every 69 minutes.
Lukaku's goal per minute ratio is a goal every 97 minutes.
If you only count major international tournaments:
Batshuayi - goal every 66 minutes
Lukaku - goal every 165 minutes
Are these ratios still quite useful? Does sample size still not matter?
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Brilliant!
You can defo blame his big head for the CL
Seriously speaking, I think he is the last player you'd criticize for their league campaign. He's been good
Yeah I think he didn't really ruin a goal since the keeper should have saved it being just behind him. Although he was offside which could have ruined a potential goal by blocking the view of the keeper.
I think Inter have a decent start in the league, but they dropped some points from late goals too often. Need to stop doing that if they want to win it.
Your eyes don't lie.
Great commentary and quotes... well rid of him
Damn... that looooong wait for the ball to fall down perfectly at 3:35 (despite the box being crowded by opponents) for it to then get cleared. He could be so mind numbingly frustrating.
I love the one where he launches it in the air, tries to win it again, and then falls over.
He didn't seem to be fouled. he was just not that athletic, erratic etc
Daley Blind had him in his pocket. Big, fast, strong Daley Blind!! It wasn’t because he was being manhandled, it was because he was poor.
You seem to have concluded that I said sample size doesn't matter. Quite the contrary, I emphasized that the sample size has to be large enough. The other part of my argument was simply to point out that while the sample size must be large enough it is still remains a sample and once a reasonable threshold has been reached it, that's sufficient for inferences to be drawn.
But even at that, what the stats tell us is that Batshauyi is quite good at international football. For Batshuayi to qualify as a control here, you must establish first that Batshauyi is in fact worse at International football than the stats suggest. How can you objectively shown that?
It's a moot point since his sample size is obviously no where near large enough anyway.
All it shows is that it's piss easy for average strikers to score goals in the current Belgium set up, poindexter.
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He started missing chances early on.
Stoke match was Round 5-6?
Last 10 min of the game and he's blasts the ball over from close range
2-2 full time - instead of going 2 points clear at the top we were level with city.
btw
this compilation is from his 1st season
He was absolute shite...for the money we paid one of our worst ever signings...he barely looks like a footballer in these videos. On top of this the biggest hypocrite to ever play for the club. Prick.
He has always been a shite footballer (poor first touch, clumsy with the ball) but a great fat track bully (hence his impressive goal record at England, Belgium and Italy). No matter how many times you trying argue about it, it’s the same conclusion all the time.
Typo or intended?
Vardy has only played one season in the CL, which happened to also be his worst season in the premier league. He only had 2 league goals by start December and failed to score in all 5 group games in the CL.
By February, he was back to the level of the previous season, which he’s maintained in every season since, scoring goals regularly in the league and scored in both knockout CL ties, so 2 in 4 games. The sample size is too small to read anything into Vardy’s CL record and there’s nothing really to suggest he wouldn’t be as deadly in the CL.
As for why he hasn’t moved to a bigger club, it will be due to his age. He was 29 even at the end of the season Leicester won the league. Given his game relies quite a bit on pace, I suspect a lot of teams felt the price they’d have to pay for maybe only 1 or 2 seasons at top level was too high. In fact, he’s proved to have much greater longevity than might have been expected. Had he been 24 at the time Leicester won the league, I’ve no doubt a range of big clubs would have wanted him.
By February, he was back to the level of the previous season, which he’s maintained in every season since, scoring goals regularly in the league and scored in both knockout CL ties, so 2 in 4 games. The sample size is too small to read anything into Vardy’s CL record and there’s nothing really to suggest he wouldn’t be as deadly in the CL.
As for why he hasn’t moved to a bigger club, it will be due to his age. He was 29 even at the end of the season Leicester won the league. Given his game relies quite a bit on pace, I suspect a lot of teams felt the price they’d have to pay for maybe only 1 or 2 seasons at top level was too high. In fact, he’s proved to have much greater longevity than might have been expected. Had he been 24 at the time Leicester won the league, I’ve no doubt a range of big clubs would have wanted him.
Other than his first touches, at ManUnited, what funny was that at the beginning he seemed very close with Pogba. When Lukaku joined and banged goals in, posters thought they had a great chemistry and were good friends. And then Jose (of course Jose out of all people) surely made things very awkward for both of them, Lukaku became the teacher's pet, even going as far as saying 'just deal with it man, like a grown up man, man' whilst Pogba was being branded a virus by Jose
Lukaku is multifaceted. His quotes about United after joining Inter were contradictory with what he said during his time here.
Lukaku is multifaceted. His quotes about United after joining Inter were contradictory with what he said during his time here.
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So many memories. Not even enough time to show where he trod on the ball with nobody around him and pretended to to be injured
would love to be in a room with him watching that!
Could be Heskey with those pesky step overs
I'm glad he's doing well, I'm also extra glad he's not playing for us
I feel the issue with Rom is that he clearly knows he is not that great a footballer when it comes to technique, touch, finesse. He is a good goal scorer granted but he has a real insecure, overcompensating confidence about him. Perhaps combined with a great feeling of injustice he isn't being mentioned alongside the likes of Henry, Aguero, Shearer when discussing great PL strikers.
Look how he reacted to some kids calling him chunky online, posting pics of his six pack in response. His comments always come across as David Brent-esque but he isn't being ironic, he is being deadly serious.
Look how he reacted to some kids calling him chunky online, posting pics of his six pack in response. His comments always come across as David Brent-esque but he isn't being ironic, he is being deadly serious.
English refs and non-english refs have very different standards. It's the biggest difference between the PL and the rest
Mkhitaryan also had significant performance differences between Klopp and Tuchel, at the same club, in the same league, with the same refs. He's a player who seems to create a lot of mental pressure for himself and doesn't seem to deal very well with it. You put him into a functional team, with a coach that cuddles him and he's a top performer against most teams, you put him in a dysfunctional team with a coach who has a rougher approach to man management and he gets consumed by self doubt.
Would I be correct to say that the only goals he's scored in CL knockout stages in his career are the two vs PSG?