Romelu Lukaku | Napoli watch

"Serie A is shit"
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3rd in the UEFA Country Ranking

"Italy is shit":
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Top10 country according to the FIFA ranking

Italy is above Germany both in the UEFA and FIFA ranking.
 
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It is shit. I mean look at how fecking close they are with Bundesliga :lol:
As for the National team stop deluding yourself.
 
He's yet to score against Juventus, Atalanta & Roma - he's been practically Invisible in these matches despite playing at least 4 times against each.
This season he's played twice against juventus, once against roma and one half against atalanta. And the only game of those in which he was poor was juventus in the cup.

Scored against Napoli, had massive back to back performances against lazio and milan. Plain truth is he's had about 5 poor games all season long. 3 of those in CL and one in the italian cup

When the team needs him in crucial moments he will feck up it's pretty much documented at this point
Half true for CL - he was great against gladbach - and definitely bs as far as the league is concerned. They're first and he's been their best player by far. More than that, they depend on him almost as much as juventus depend on Cristiano, and he's delivering
 
This season he's played twice against juventus, once against roma and one half against atalanta. And the only game of those in which he was poor was juventus in the cup.

Scored against Napoli, had massive back to back performances against lazio and milan. Plain truth is he's had about 5 poor games all season long. 3 of those in CL and one in the italian cup


Half true for CL - he was great against gladbach - and definitely bs as far as the league is concerned. They're first and he's been their best player by far. More than that, they depend on him almost as much as juventus depend on Cristiano, and he's delivering
He looked only decent vs Gladbachah. Where was he vs Shaktar or Real?


Yeah they're 1st but why are they 1st? Has nothing to do with their rivals becoming shit right?
last vs current season after 23 matches
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So they have 1 point less than last season's leaders after 23 games, in a COVID season where everyone understandably got worse. What it says is that inter are better than they were a year ago. And Lukaku is better than he was 1 year ago, too.

And also that he was already amazing in the league for them last season


As for Italy, this is not the 2014 side and Ventura is not the coach anymore. We have the world's best midfielder if he can only stay fecking fit :lol: a lot of very good players, one of the world's best gk, a strong defence, and a couple more potential cracks other than Verratti. And a top manager in charge
 
Good centre forward before we bought him.
Good centre forward when he played for us.
Good centre forward after he left.

He’s always going to score goals. He’s a good centre forward. Never in that top bracket of those you’d pick for a tough chance in a Champions League Final if it was to be your only one. But that’s rare in itself.

His ability and goal record is probably around the same as someone like Robbie Keane. Really good footballers both.

pretty much. I would say he is closer to Yakubu
I do think the villainization of Lukaku goes overboard but he hasn't helped himself with the strange comments he's made about his time at United.

On the footballer himself, I don't think he's a "top" striker. There's no chance we sell a genuinely top CF the way we did. By top I mean, among the bracket of Kane, Lewandowski, Aguero, Suarez (in his prime) etc Of course Lukaku isn't at that level and will never be as he's technically far too weak and clumsy. However, he is without doubt a very good goalscorer.

With regards to our decision to sell him, it's an interesting one. He was clearly starting to make a real mess out of his United career and had nobody to blame for that but himself. And to be honest we aren't going to play football at the level that City and Liverpool do/did, with him as our main CF. I mean, it takes a Conte to build a title winning team around with Lukaku and Martinez as your two strikers. For our own sake, and mine as a fan, I've always preferred us to have a more technical/complete striker up top. And yes, in hindsight, you can argue that Ole possibly got that decision wrong given how poorly Martial has done this season but important to note that Martial was superb last season, and the club's direction is also important. Would we do better this season with Lukaku? Of course, we'd probably certainly finish 2nd. Do I want him as our CF long term? Nah, I want us to play sexy football. Inter were a functional team when they won titles in the 00s and they are now again that. Manchester United should be putting on a spectacle.

Genuine top strikers won't have his glaring limitations and as you say, won't get sold. We may not have finished 2nd with Lukaku as you cannot just extrapulate his Serie A goals and convert them to EPL ones. He didn't score many in his last season here.

[/QUOTE]
Oh C'mon Giorno
WC 2010 out of GS
WC 2014 out of GS
WC 2018 didn't even qualify
What does that say about the quality of Italian players?
Best since the 90s
 
So they have 1 point less than last season's leaders after 23 games, in a COVID season where everyone understandably got worse. What it says is that inter are better than they were a year ago. And Lukaku is better than he was 1 year ago, too.

And also that he was already amazing in the league for them last season


As for Italy, this is not the 2014 side and Ventura is not the coach anymore. We have the world's best midfielder if he can only stay fecking fit :lol: a lot of very good players, one of the world's best gk, a strong defence, and a couple more potential cracks other than Verratti. And a top manager in charge
who?
 
Giorno, hyperbole? Never. ;)
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Surprised this hasn’t been posted, seeing as his thread is the first on the most recently posted in:
 
Verrati apparently :lol:
I mean he's good but world's best?
He is. Or would be if he wasn't always fecking injured :lol:

Seriously, he's everything liverpool fans thought Thiago would be
 
I meant CM/non-attacking obviously

De Bruyne plays as an 8, so pretty much CM by definition.

But, yeah, agree Verratti is one hell of a player. A bit less injured, a bit more level headed sometimes and he is up there in the very top.
 
It is been posted in the previous page I think. That was a nice statement.
So it was! Missed it in the midst of all that boring debating about Serie A and UCL coefficients.
 
"L'ho fatto io cazzo!!!!" :lol:

Channeling jamie vardy when he broke the PL consecutive goals record against mancunians
 
Good centre forward before we bought him.
Good centre forward when he played for us.
Good centre forward after he left.

He’s always going to score goals. He’s a good centre forward. Never in that top bracket of those you’d pick for a tough chance in a Champions League Final if it was to be your only one. But that’s rare in itself.

His ability and goal record is probably around the same as someone like Robbie Keane. Really good footballers both.
A well balanced view and I fully agree with you. Lukaku reminds of Les Ferdinand or Jermaine Defoe. A really solid CF, but simply not good enough to lead the line at a top club.
 
I think it's misleading to compare goals per games across eras as clearly the game has become more attacking and goals per game ratios generally have gone up.
I agree with that in principle, however , if you can be bothered to google historic goals per game you’d probably be as surprised as me. I did it from 1994 when 3 points per game was brought in. There is really very little variation, almost all years were in the 2.6 to 2.8 category. Maybe one or two outliers on either side. Its certainly a good lesson in sometimes not trusting your instinct. I would have bet anything that there would be a clear statistical change upwards but it simply hasn’t happened. In the interests of transparency, the article I was looking at was done in spring 2020 and that final season 2019/2020 was running at close to 3 goals per game, although possibly the results vary more halfway through seasons.
But to be clear, goals per game changes season by season but is consistently within a fairly narrow window.
 
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Serie A goals per game settled around 2.6/2.7 for most seasons pre-covid with a couple outliers(16/17 and 19/20 pre-lockdown, at 2.9). In 19/20 the pre/post lockdown was stark: from 2.9 pre lockdown to 3.4 post-lockdown. This season it's at 3 goals per game. Of note the 19/20 season had a truly ridiculous number of penalties for handball which inflated the numbers and caused mass hysteria among fans, clubs and pundits :lol:

So yeah, there's clearly been an uptick in goals per game across the league since Lukaku came to Italy
 
"Serie A is shit"
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3rd in the UEFA Country Ranking

That kind of reinforces that it is shit :lol:

It's 20 points behind England and Spain. That's a huge drop. And you can discount the 2021 season as we are only just into the group stages, which puts it even further behind. Juventus are already down in their tie and the remaining two are up against Bayern and Madrid.
 
Benching 100kg at 15 is impressive! He really was a bit of a beast at youth level. It reminds me of that picture of him where he looks like a man against kids.
 
Benching 100kg at 15 is impressive! He really was a bit of a beast at youth level. It reminds me of that picture of him where he looks like a man against kids.

It might actually have been a downside for him. He was probably so physically dominant that he didn't need to develop his technical game as a youth player.
 
Would be interested to see what belgium and inter fans not on here think of him. Theres clearly a anti-lukaku agenda on here. Which is a shame as it would be nice to be able to dicuss him without prejudice and bias.
Welcome from an Inter fan!
I've seen that you have very fierce discussion about Lukaku here :)
I don't think it is correct to compare Man Utd's Lukaku and Lukaku now. They are completely different players ;). Lukaku came at Inter fat, slow, with zero stamina and losing almost every duel with a defender. Many Inter fans were vastly disappointed with him at the beginning and the only thing which saved his ass form huge critique was that he was able to score goals frequently somehow.
Since then he's improved a lot and nowdays he is faster, stronger, much better playing with his back to the goal, and he has optimized his first touch - if he is not sure that can handle the ball well, he tires to convert it in a short pass, which is working in most of the cases.
I don't think that the change of the league affects him so much but is the coach imo. Lukaku was a particular request by Conte, and he's the main reason behind Lukaku's improvement. The only thing unchanged is his finishing. He is still wasting easy chances shooting straight to the keeper in most of the situations.
So, if he has stayed in Man Utd, he would have been the same player as before (or worst) most probably, unless you would have gotten Antonio Conte as manager :)
 
It might actually have been a downside for him. He was probably so physically dominant that he didn't need to develop his technical game as a youth player.
Almost certainly the case. He was capable of playing against men from such a young age. Obviously he still scored goals but he was hyped to high heaven when really he never had that special technical ability the top players have. He still doesn’t today.
 
Some one on another forum actually said he was a contender for the Ballon d’or , is this a joke?
 
Some one on another forum actually said he was a contender for the Ballon d’or , is this a joke?

Bit early in the year to speculate that isn't it? I've watched to little football since to come with a good guess. Ronaldo is certainly banging them in this year, but if they are knocked out by Porto I doubt he will win it. Lewandowski has a great goal pr. game ratio, but Bundesliga isn't at the highest level ever. Haaland or Mbappe(if they win the CL) are probably are good shout. Lukkaku has had a great season apart from his CL blunders, but best player in the world he's not.
 
Some one on another forum actually said he was a contender for the Ballon d’or , is this a joke?

Contender in what sense?

Is he going to win? Obviously not. Is he going to end up on the list? Maybe, why not? Worse players than him make it every year.
 
Contender in what sense?

Is he going to win? Obviously not. Is he going to end up on the list? Maybe, why not? Worse players than him make it every year.
Yes, it's not an outrageous statement, depends if Inter win the title too.
 
In England, he was never really thought of as a targetman(except for Mourinho...), because his touches and hold up-play was poor, much better running in-behind as a typical number 9.
However, for Inter, he seem vital to their way of playing by being just that, a target man, only watched Inter a few times this season, but he did a good job of holding onto the ball and moving it on in those matches i saw.

Players can improve in a number of ways, but improving technically as an adult is quite rare, isn't it? Dont know how he managed that.