You missed the boat on that one. We've had nearly 2 years of it, at least until he got totally shown up last week.
None of them are top players, Serie A is perfect for their level
Romelu Lukaku | Napoli watch
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You missed the boat on that one. We've had nearly 2 years of it, at least until he got totally shown up last week.
None of them are top players, Serie A is perfect for their level
Clearly better than Martial
I swear people who say Serie A are shit fail to realise that Lukaku was a success in England. He banged in goals at every club, he had 27 goals at United his first season. His flaws are still there but his goal scoring exploits would happen in any league in the world
And everybody who uses that argument fails to see how playing for a top club is very different to playing for West Brom and Everton. In those top clubs you need to beat the other top teams around you. Lukaku has long since proven he can't make the difference in those tough games the way the top strikers can.
If he ever came back, and I'm pretty sure he wont, his record against the big teams wouldn't change. As good as he has been in Italy he still hasn't scored against a top 3 team in Serie A.
Milan are not a top 3 team.
Did you watch that game and see how many chances he missed?
Exactly. The guy reached 300 career goals at 27, the same age as Ronaldo and younger than Ibrahimovic or Lewandoski. Not that they aren’t all superior players, but that is one hell of an achievement, regardless of whether or not a few people on this forum have developed some kind of complex about him.
Five years ago he scored 25 goals in the Premiership for Everton when he was 23. The same age as Rashford (10 goals) is now. Only Kane and Salah have beaten that total since then. I’ve never found him an aesthetically pleasing striker but the constant attempts to put him down are so obviously born out of some pretty nasty personal animosity. From a few, not all I should add.
Yes at inter what he does is directly pass or deviate the ball in the direction of the other player without having to tightly control the ball and he's actually pretty good at it. Here he was asked to hold onto the ball alone up top which is something he's terrible at. I still don't understand why we bought him if it was to use him in a way everybody knew he was terrible.
They’re currently fourth. Clearly one of the best teams in the league. Local rivals. And that was a game with added hype/pressure after his row with Zlatan. There are only so many “big” games in a season. That was one of them and Lukaku stamped his influence all over it.
success at United
he scored 25% of his goals in the first two months, and then went into an 18 month slump.
27 goals, but only 16 in the league, followed by 12 in the second season. 1 goal in 23 appearances against the top 6.
overweight, appalling attitude and shunted out of the team.
People keep bringing me back into this because they think he was a success. Complete rubbish. At the time he was so bad, no one except Conte wanted him, and we were extremely thankful to get the fee we did for him.
he was not what you expect from a £90m striker. Who played every game regardless of form. Absolute flop.
Nobody says he can't play well against teams at that level.
His record in Serie A this season is 16 in 33 without penalties.
Martial had 17 in 32 in the PL last season without penalties.
Martial had 17 in 32 in the PL last season without penalties.
Are you seriously going to imply “that level” is meaningfully different to a game against the mighty Atalanta?!
And he was praised hugely for it at the time and rightly so. Over their careers so far, as I’m sure you’re aware, there is no contest whatsoever.
How do their assists compare over that same period?
It's only one season data. Lukaku has 10 assists and Martial had 6.
Also Lukaku's record in Serie A and for Manutd is almost same. Only difference is, he takes penalties now.
| Mins | Non Penalty Goals | Mins per Goal | Assists | Mins per G+A | |
| 2020-21 | 2674 | 16 | 167.13 | 10 | 102.85 |
| 2019-20 | 2984 | 17 | 175.53 | 2 | 157.05 |
| 2018-19 | 2130 | 12 | 177.50 | 0 | 177.50 |
| 2017-18 | 2669 | 16 | 166.81 | 7 | 116.04 |
| Mins | NP Goals | Mins per Goal | Assists | Mins per G+A | |
| Inter | 5658 | 33 | 171.45 | 12 | 125.73 |
| ManUtd | 4799 | 28 | 171.39 | 7 | 137.11 |
Martial this season and last season in PL.
| Total Mins | Goals _+ Assists | Mins per G+A |
4128 | 30 | 137.6 |
Atalanta that Liverpool put 5 past in the Champions League? Milan, Atalanta, whoever else it doesn't matter. They would all be mid table at best in the PL. Juventus was the only strong team in that league but they have now fallen back.
Lukaku has always thrived against mid level teams. Against teams occupying Champions League spots, his career record is 14 goals in 70 games. I'm not going to try and count all Aguero's goals but he has 8 in 13 against us alone.
Yeah except that's the first season Martial had played upfront for its entirety - and spent half of it playing with a midfield sans Bruno and Pogba. Not that he's covered himself in glory this season.
Martial was praised a little bit but still the consensus was he's not a true #9 and that we should go out and buy Harry Kane. Which I suspect would be the verdict if we still had Lukaku - good but not going to take us to the next level.
success at United
he scored 25% of his goals in the first two months, and then went into an 18 month slump.
27 goals, but only 16 in the league, followed by 12 in the second season. 1 goal in 23 appearances against the top 6.
overweight, appalling attitude and shunted out of the team.
People keep bringing me back into this because they think he was a success. Complete rubbish. At the time he was so bad, no one except Conte wanted him, and we were extremely thankful to get the fee we did for him.
he was not what you expect from a £90m striker. Who played every game regardless of form. Absolute flop.
I said success in England, which he was, no? I don’t think he was a success at United.
His failure at United can’t be discounted. It’s a big part of his career in England. Far more relevant than his time at West Brom for example. You can argue he failed at Chelsea as well as he never broke through.
The most any Manchester United player has scored in the league since Ferguson's departure is 17. 16 goals is usually enough to put you in the top scorers of the season list. Lukaku was 6th that season.
Just adding "only" before a number doesn't make it magically smaller.
which wasn’t Lukaku. Lukaku was the only striker we paid £75-90m for.
That's the club's fault, not the player's. If they paid $300m for him was he supposed to score 46 goals per season in the league?
Not sure why this has to be a 'debate'. Lukaku didn't perform well for us, we sold him for good money. Now he's at Inter, doing well, and they're better for having him.
We're better.
They're better.
Surely there shouldn't be a debate? It's just a great, successful transfer that benefited both clubs?
We're better.
They're better.
Surely there shouldn't be a debate? It's just a great, successful transfer that benefited both clubs?
There shouldn't be a debate, but plenty of people here are traumatized because Lukaku complained about the club a bunch of times while having a bad season.
Traumatized
You call it success, I'd call it being a good midtable striker who couldn't make the step up to the elite level (and it would be generous to call us elite while he was here).
What's your point? Scoring 16 goals in the league is something the likes of Vardy and Danny Ings have done in recent times and since he's been in Italy he's been outscored by Immobile.
Lukaku, and some people on here, act as if he's in the elite bracket of strikers, people are just soberly reminding them that he belong in the Vardy/Danny Ings/Immobile bracket, not alongside Lewandowski, Kane, Haaland et al.
Luis Muriel has played half of the mins, he scored just 2 less goals and 2 less assists. His record shits all over Lukaku's, I didn't see anyone calling him top 5 players or top 3 CF in Europe. Same with Immobile too.
He scored 42 goals in 96 games in his 2 seasons for Utd, which happens to be Rashford's exact return over the past 2 seasons. So he's 'failed' as much as Rashford has.
His return of 27 goals in his first season has been bettered on a single occasion in the eight seasons since Ferguson retired (Ibrahimovic got 28). You certainly seem to have a definition for failure that sets the bar a hell of a lot higher for Lukaku than for anyone else.
I rate Lukaku but it has to be said that Serie A is incredibly crap.
Always bring Rashford unnecessarily and when more detailed stats are posted, just run away
Ironically I think Lukaku would do fairly well for us now.
Since Bruno came in we've moved away from needing our main striker to hold up the ball and bring others into play, which was probably Lukaku's biggest weakness.
Cavani is evidence enough that simply having a solid goalscorer up top can work.
I don't miss him as he's a massive baby but I could see it
Since Bruno came in we've moved away from needing our main striker to hold up the ball and bring others into play, which was probably Lukaku's biggest weakness.
Cavani is evidence enough that simply having a solid goalscorer up top can work.
I don't miss him as he's a massive baby but I could see it
Congrats to Romelu and the other former Reds on their title win for Inter.
I still hold the opinion that he is by far a better number 9 than passive Martial.
Lukaku is a top class striker. You know what you'll get from him...Goals.
That said I'm not a big favourite of his style...Good luck to him though.
I still hold the opinion that he is by far a better number 9 than passive Martial.
Lukaku is a top class striker. You know what you'll get from him...Goals.
That said I'm not a big favourite of his style...Good luck to him though.
Ironically I think Lukaku would do fairly well for us now.
Since Bruno came in we've moved away from needing our main striker to hold up the ball and bring others into play, which was probably Lukaku's biggest weakness.
Cavani is evidence enough that simply having a solid goalscorer up top can work.
He's a top finisher no doubt but Cavani's style fits better the way Ole wants to play IMO.
Cavani works the channels and links up the play with teammates better than Lukaku.
Rashford didn’t play as the sole striker. You are comparing two different types of players in different positions.
I don’t know a single united fan that either rates his time with us, or thinks he was anything other than a failure.
I'm happy for Lukkaku and Inter. He gets to win his first major league trophy and Inter broke the Juventus monopoly. Lukkaku is a bit of an player in the sense that he obviously has a great track record of scoring goals, and his total goals at his age is very good, but he still has major all around limitations of traditionally great strikers. He's a good poacher and great flat track bully. I think the fact that there is a lack of strikers in their prime definitely puts lukkaku more in the spotlight than he would otherwise be. His goals to games ratio is very good, but he's still never had the footballing ability of strikers like Suarez, Lukkaku, Ibra, Aguero, Rooney, RVP etc in their prime. I still believe he can develop though and I think he has developed somewhat at Inter. He's just never going to technically at the level of the greats.
FInd it strange how a player can polarize opinion to the extremeties like Lukaku does.
The simple fact is he is a natural goalscorer and a very good one at that. He is his National teams all time record scorer, he has banged goals in the Belgian league, the Premiership and Serie A for fun. He now has (another) title to his name, has won countless indivual awards, and yet some people still think he's not very good?
From Uniteds persepctive, I am much happier with Cavani, hes a more complete footballer and suits our style of play a lot more than what Lukaku would.
However, people trying to claim hes not a good player are inherently incorrect in their opinions, likewise people trying to compare him to our players we have currently by way of goals scored.
The simple fact is he is a natural goalscorer and a very good one at that. He is his National teams all time record scorer, he has banged goals in the Belgian league, the Premiership and Serie A for fun. He now has (another) title to his name, has won countless indivual awards, and yet some people still think he's not very good?
From Uniteds persepctive, I am much happier with Cavani, hes a more complete footballer and suits our style of play a lot more than what Lukaku would.
However, people trying to claim hes not a good player are inherently incorrect in their opinions, likewise people trying to compare him to our players we have currently by way of goals scored.
Think you've missed de Gea's goalscoring form in that time too, in fact de Gea hasn't scored a single goal and he's been here since 2011, he doesn't seem to be held to any sort of standard at all!
I read an article on the BBC the other day which said Inter worked closely with him on his conditioning when he first joined. Makes sense really, he was well off it in that respect in his second season here.
I saw a post further up suggesting he would fare better at United in our current setup and I think that's probably true. Ultimately Inter is the right place for him though - a respectable team in a good league but not one with the pressures of a top Premier League side. It suits him well and doesn't have such high demands on good technical ability.
Traumatized
Yeah, it's trauma and not a bunch of guys calling a spade a spade