Romelu Lukaku | Napoli watch

giorno said:
Not really? Icardi and Lukaku play nothing alike and Inter play and attack nothing alike last season
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Yeah that's what I thought and confused when I read that post. Icardi is barely involved in the build up and he was more box player doing damage off the ball, Lukaku is more involved and runs the channel well, takes on defenders and beats them with his pace.

2 different style of players.
 
Inigo Montoya said:
This place :lol:

What happened to all the posts saying what a donkey he is? He's scoring and seems to be enjoying his football, good luck to the guy.

He wasn't what we needed and it was clear that he wanted to leave even though he was played often by Ole, scored against fodder like Palace and Southampton but had a poor record against the top teams.

Is it a stick to beat him with? Shouldn't be as we knew what we were buying. Now he's doing well it seems to be polarising opinions on here.
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True. We played him in the wrong system but annoyingly it's not like we've done better since he left — our system is generally a mess so it's hard to say we've bettered ourselves by getting rid just yet.

This to me seems to be the reason for the polarisation. In a year or two we might be saying Lukaku WHO?! but right now we're basically watching our ex enjoying themselves while we silently hate how boring our own life is.
 
Well he was wank for us in our 2nd season and said he already thought about leaving after his 2nd game for us. So I'm happy for him that he's doing well for Inter, if he'd consistently performing better here i'm sure we would have done more to keep him.
 
I'd rather have Lukaku's touch being off every third ball than Martial standing like a statue on the halfway line everything we try and attack
 
lsd said:
I'd rather have Lukaku's touch being off every third ball than Martial standing like a statue on the halfway line everything we try and attack
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There's surely zero doubt now that we should have said no to Lukaku, made him happy and promised a move next Summer. We'd be in a much better state now with him in-form in this side.
Get CL, replace him, then move him on.
But Ole clearly thought he was wank and gave the 9 to Martial and pinned his hopes on Martial, Rashford and Greenwood for the season. Now history is being rewritten in that Ole MUST have demanded a replacement because nobody is that stupid, sadly, I think he simply was that naive and over optimistic.
 
Still was a crazy decision to let him go with no replacement planned. We knew even before the summer window he was going and in all that time we could only bring Ighalo at the death. Ole really fell for the myth of Martial.

We'd be better off with him this season, he's far from perfect but was and still would be the best forward at the club.
 
Hawks2008 said:
Still was a crazy decision to let him go with no replacement planned. We knew even before the summer window he was going and in all that time we could only bring Ighalo at the death. Ole really fell for the myth of Martial.

We'd be better off with him this season, he's far from perfect but was and still would be the best forward at the club.
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Yes, but who knows if Inter would have been back in for him this season? £75m is a good fee to get of him.

I would rather have one season without him and struggle than with him being a bad apple not letting us build for the future.
 
giorno said:
Not really? Icardi and Lukaku play nothing alike and Inter play and attack nothing alike last season


Not really, he's generally very involved in the build up.

Besides, he's a striker. Of course he needs to get the ball in the box to score, like every other striker ever


For every poor touch there's a good one. The way this place zeroed in on that and started making it up as if everytime he got the ball outside the box was a turnover makes no sense to me
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Similar as in neither of them are much use outside the box. Lukaku has two areas in which he is effective; using his strength to hold an attacker off in the box, or running with the ball down the channels. Icardi was much the same, he was great in the box and would hold the ball up down the channels. It's not a style that works in the PL anymore, you need strikers like Firmino and Kane who are everywhere and involved in everything.

Lukaku gets involved more than he did in the PL because his poor touches are not closed down as aggressively, but it is still a problem. His record against the top teams continues. You have to go down to 7th in the table to find a team he has had any real impact against.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
There's surely zero doubt now that we should have said no to Lukaku, made him happy and promised a move next Summer. We'd be in a much better state now with him in-form in this side.
Get CL, replace him, then move him on.
But Ole clearly thought he was wank and gave the 9 to Martial and pinned his hopes on Martial, Rashford and Greenwood for the season. Now history is being rewritten in that Ole MUST have demanded a replacement because nobody is that stupid, sadly, I think he simply was that naive and over optimistic.
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I won't have it, our main problems lie in not replacing him not in keeping him. Rashford was well on his way to smashing Lukaku’s United league goals for a single season.
 
romufc said:
Yes, but who knows if Inter would have been back in for him this season? £75m is a good fee to get of him.

I would rather have one season without him and struggle than with him being a bad apple not letting us build for the future.
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I don't know, I think we really did shoot ourselves in the foot. We knew he was leaving and a buyer was obviously always Inter and we did nothing with that time and knowledge to find a replacement. The thing is without this season being a success building long term will be hard? What quality player will want to join struggling team?

We kept Pogba against his will, and he is being shit on by everyone as the baddest apple of all so I'm sure we would be no worse off if Lukaku was still here.
 
Hawks2008 said:
I don't know, I think we really did shoot ourselves in the foot. We knew he was leaving and a buyer was obviously always Inter and we did nothing with that time and knowledge to find a replacement. The thing is without this season being a success building long term will be hard? What quality player will want to join struggling team?

We kept Pogba against his will, and he is being shit on by everyone as the baddest apple of all so I'm sure we would be no worse off if Lukaku was still here.
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How do you build something without getting rid first? Lukaku left once the transfer window in England had closed, I am sure if a deal was done early, we would have got someone in.

I'm sorry but we were never going to challenge for the title so there was no success this season. We signed Bruno, Maguire, AWB no? IMO they are quality players. City managed to sign players when they were not successful, Liverpool did as well.

We might not sign the top 10 players but there are players out there if the scouting dept do their jobs, can find players who want to play for manutd.
 
Amazes me that the discussion on Lukaku hasn’t already exhausted itself.

Very good goal scorer. Decent player.

Conte is getting the best out of him. Says a lot about the pair of them. (Positive things)

But nobody wanted him here and his style of play didn’t fit in. He wouldn’t get a game at most top sides.

Had Jose worked out I’m sure that Lukaku would have stayed 10 seasons, won a couple of big trophies and got close to Coles total.
 
romufc said:
How do you build something without getting rid first? Lukaku left once the transfer window in England had closed, I am sure if a deal was done early, we would have got someone in.

I'm sorry but we were never going to challenge for the title so there was no success this season. We signed Bruno, Maguire, AWB no? IMO they are quality players. City managed to sign players when they were not successful, Liverpool did as well.

We might not sign the top 10 players but there are players out there if the scouting dept do their jobs, can find players who want to play for manutd.
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The league was always going to be out of reach, but top 4 is not looking likely and neither does a piece silverware which would have constituted a successful season. Liverpool and City attracted players because they have Pep and Klopp at the helm and not a random PE teacher. The way things are going we are on course for consecutive seasons out of CL which will damage our ability to sign players in the summer window. You can build without gutting the squad which is what the manager did, it's not just about Lukaku but Herrera and Fellaini were also sent packing, all 3 walk into our current team and Ole thought he could make do without them. Really naive.

And yeah of course we can attract players from clubs who aren't in the same planet as us in terms of size but actually ambitious players won't want anything to do with us. You think the likes of Sancho or Saul who we have been chasing will leave CL clubs to come here? Instead we will chase mid table club players or players from lesser leagues again.

I don't buy that we couldn't replace Lukaku since he left during the European window. As I've said twice already we knew he was being sold and we should have been more proactive and we weren't and it's biting us in the arse now.
 
@Hawks2008 did Liverpool attract players? I don’t remember them buying anybody over the summer.
As for not being able to get the likes of Sancho and Saul, Liverpool weren’t really buying these kinds of players either, besides Alisson and Van Djik they bought players with lesser profiles and made them stars.
United don’t need to buy Saul (have we been chasing him?) to get back to the top, we just need to be wise in the transfer market and get a better support system around the manager.
Being Ole out if fair enough, I’m leaning more that way as time goes on, but to call him a random PE teacher is really sad.
 
11101 said:
Similar as in neither of them are much use outside the box.
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And that's just plain wrong. Watch inter games, see how much they rely on Lukaku in the build up

Lukaku has two areas in which he is effective; using his strength to hold an attacker off in the box, or running with the ball down the channels. Icardi was much the same, he was great in the box and would hold the ball up down the channels.
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Inter were a crossing team with Icardi, because that's the best way to set him up. They cross considerably less this season because that's not a good way to set up Lukaku. Icardi is great in the box in a way Lukaku is not, and barely useful outside the box, unlike Lukaku

It's not a style that works in the PL anymore, you need strikers like Firmino and Kane who are everywhere and involved in everything.
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Works just fine for Aguero

Lukaku gets involved more than he did in the PL because his poor touches are not closed down as aggressively, but it is still a problem.
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No, his poor touches still lead nowhere. He simply doesn't always have a poor touch, contrary to popular caf belief. Neither did he in England
 
Hawks2008 said:
The league was always going to be out of reach, but top 4 is not looking likely and neither does a piece silverware which would have constituted a successful season. Liverpool and City attracted players because they have Pep and Klopp at the helm and not a random PE teacher. The way things are going we are on course for consecutive seasons out of CL which will damage our ability to sign players in the summer window. You can build without gutting the squad which is what the manager did, it's not just about Lukaku but Herrera and Fellaini were also sent packing, all 3 walk into our current team and Ole thought he could make do without them. Really naive.

And yeah of course we can attract players from clubs who aren't in the same planet as us in terms of size but actually ambitious players won't want anything to do with us. You think the likes of Sancho or Saul who we have been chasing will leave CL clubs to come here? Instead we will chase mid table club players or players from lesser leagues again.

I don't buy that we couldn't replace Lukaku since he left during the European window. As I've said twice already we knew he was being sold and we should have been more proactive and we weren't and it's biting us in the arse now.
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I agree with your points but If we are not going to compete for the title, I dont mind us if we plan correctly suffering this season.

We have learnt more about the players, we knew about the players mentioned what they were capable of, no one knew what Martial can do as a 9, how Greenwood will react, how Williams will, how McT, how Fred.

What we have seen is players like McT, Fred, Williams, Greenwood are all players that can stay and players like Perreira, Lingard, are not good enough.

Well, I dont mind us getting mid table players like Grealish, Bruno etc because they will be part of the build and if they prove successful, in a years time we can attract the cherry on top if need be.
 
flappyjay said:
I won't have it, our main problems lie in not replacing him not in keeping him. Rashford was well on his way to smashing Lukaku’s United league goals for a single season.
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What are you not having? That we'd be quite few points better off with a fit and happy Lukaku in this side?

Surely there's little to no doubt about that? As for Rashford, I absolutely love the guy, but he doesn't even play in Lukaku's position now. Rashford in this form + Zlatan or Lukaku would be interesting. The management at United thought Martial would be enough, right now that looks a very poor decision.
 
He always played best for us in the 3-5-2 formation also.

They've limited the amount of running he needs to do, he does zero defensive work and just concentrates on leading the line.

The main difference is though the team is just coached well. They know what they're doing, they have a plan.
 
Adam-Utd said:
He always played best for us in the 3-5-2 formation also.

They've limited the amount of running he needs to do, he does zero defensive work and just concentrates on leading the line.

The main difference is though the team is just coached well. They know what they're doing, they have a plan.
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That's helped by having Lautaro next to him
 
El Zoido said:
If you have a player that wants out, we might as well take the opportunity to offload him. Especially for the price we got for him.

We should definitely have had a replacement lined up, but we sold him too late. Guess the club didn’t want to risk bringing someone in and then having the Lukaku sale fall through. Since it takes us 3 months of negotiating to get our transfers done, regardless of whether we’re buying or selling. We’re just not efficient in the market and it’s causing problems.
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He wanted out because the club made him unwanted. Besides this is a Euro year, he would have sulked a little at first but probably would have gotten on with things. Lukaku wouldn't have been the first player who wanted out but that a club didn't sell.
At the very least, a replacement should have been brought before agreeing to his sell. We could do with a few more goals in our squad.
The thing I have noticed with Lukaku is when anyone is shitting on him, he is considered as a fanboy, as someone who cannot get over his ex.
Whatever happened to simply talking about a player without any agenda ? The caf has gone to shit in these past few years it's sad.
 
kouroux said:
He wanted out because the club made him unwanted. Besides this is a Euro year, he would have sulked a little at first but probably would have gotten on with things. Lukaku wouldn't have been the first player who wanted out but that a club didn't sell.
At the very least, a replacement should have been brought before agreeing to his sell. We could do with a few more goals in our squad.
The thing I have noticed with Lukaku is when anyone is shitting on him, he is considered as a fanboy, as someone who cannot get over his ex.
Whatever happened to simply talking about a player without any agenda ? The caf has gone to shit in these past few years it's sad.
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It really frustrates me that people use this as an excuse to why Ole let our only real striker leave in the Summer, as you say, Ole made him feel unwelcome instantly, it'd be like blaming Smalling if he retired from England rather than Southgate. Of course Lukaku wanted to leave.
 
giorno said:
And that's just plain wrong. Watch inter games, see how much they rely on Lukaku in the build up


Inter were a crossing team with Icardi, because that's the best way to set him up. They cross considerably less this season because that's not a good way to set up Lukaku. Icardi is great in the box in a way Lukaku is not, and barely useful outside the box, unlike Lukaku


Works just fine for Aguero


No, his poor touches still lead nowhere. He simply doesn't always have a poor touch, contrary to popular caf belief. Neither did he in England
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I work in Milan, i watch nearly every game. They set up to accommodate him but he is still very unpredictable in the build up. Lautaro is far more critical to that part of their game. Lukaku is doing well in Italy but this narrative that he has become a better player is not true, he is largely the same as before, but in Serie A he is not exposed as much.

Aguero was dropped from the City team until he learned to get more involved in the game.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
What are you not having? That we'd be quite few points better off with a fit and happy Lukaku in this side?

Surely there's little to no doubt about that? As for Rashford, I absolutely love the guy, but he doesn't even play in Lukaku's position now. Rashford in this form + Zlatan or Lukaku would be interesting. The management at United thought Martial would be enough, right now that looks a very poor decision.
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Like I said in my post it was definitely the correct decision to sell. And also as I said it was a bad decision to not get a striker or a goal scoring right winger. Looking at Anderson, then Rooney and Shaws Manchester united history can you positively say we would have a fit Lukaku?
 
UnrelatedPsuedo said:
Amazes me that the discussion on Lukaku hasn’t already exhausted itself.

Very good goal scorer. Decent player.

Conte is getting the best out of him. Says a lot about the pair of them. (Positive things)

But nobody wanted him here and his style of play didn’t fit in. He wouldn’t get a game at most top sides.

Had Jose worked out I’m sure that Lukaku would have stayed 10 seasons, won a couple of big trophies and got close to Coles total.
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Good post.

Lukaku is a good player, but he needs an ideal situation to thrive. For me this is what separates good vs great players. Great players can be placed in nearly any setup and still perform (Ronaldo, Ibra, Beckham, KDB, Mbappe, Salah, Lewa, etc.) Even the players considered great that haven't moved clubs you get the feeling you can drop them in any setup and they would still dominate (Messi, Scholes, etc). From his time at United, we now know Lukaku isn't in the class of those players, but given his goal scoring record it's clear he can score goals.

The fault for me lies squarely on Mourinho. He had no idea what type of player Lukaku was when he bought him and therefore misused him. Part of me feels Lukaku would have been a better fit for Chelsea and Morata better fit for United, but that's just a thought experiment.
 
Quick comment on the quality Italian Serie A. It may not be up to the standards of the PL but it is a good league. In the past two seasons, I started watching the Serie A and Bundesliga more than usual (in addition to PL and LaLiga) and I would say the Serie A has the best teams top to bottom than any other league expect the PL. Even though the defensive style of football it's known for is still used by many teams but many of the top teams are playing a more progressive attacking style of football. It's not the Bundesliga in terms of end to end attacking, nor does it have aesthetic quality of Spanish football, but it's not your Serie A of 10 years ago for sure.

The advantage of a player like Lukaku is that physically there are few defenders who can match up to him in the Serie A. It's a similar situation for Haaland in the Bundesliga. The VVDs, Laportes, MaGuires, and Rüdigers of football just aren't as plentiful in other leagues. Still the Serie A has very good defenders (Koulibaly, Manolas, Chiellini, Acerbi, etc) and it's not a farmer's league.
 
romufc said:
Yes, but who knows if Inter would have been back in for him this season? £75m is a good fee to get of him.

I would rather have one season without him and struggle than with him being a bad apple not letting us build for the future.
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Some beautiful future we are building now.
 
romufc said:
Yes, Lukaku was part of a beautiful present last season?
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No but I thought getting rid of him was setting us in the right direction. We are clearly worse, we have Odion Ighalo coming from the Chinese league. I'm not a Lukaku fan but getting rid of him without replacing him was stupid, better to have just kept him
 
UnrelatedPsuedo said:
Amazes me that the discussion on Lukaku hasn’t already exhausted itself.

Very good goal scorer. Decent player.

Conte is getting the best out of him. Says a lot about the pair of them. (Positive things)

But nobody wanted him here and his style of play didn’t fit in. He wouldn’t get a game at most top sides.

Had Jose worked out I’m sure that Lukaku would have stayed 10 seasons, won a couple of big trophies and got close to Coles total.
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Aren't you condraticting yourself here?

I think Lukaku is an elite striker, and like most strikers needs a team built around his strengths for him to deliver to his potential. We've seen same at our club over the years with strikers like Cole, Saha, RVN.

That wasn't possible at Manchester United for several reasons, and so it didn't work out as well as it could have. I liked Lukaku alot and was frustrated that he left.
 
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kouroux said:
No but I thought getting rid of him was setting us in the right direction. We are clearly worse, we have Odion Ighalo coming from the Chinese league. I'm not a Lukaku fan but getting rid of him without replacing him was stupid, better to have just kept him
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Ighalo is a 6 month loan hardly a signing for the future.

Why have a £75m asset that you can sell and still be the same, we finished 6th last season with Lukaku so we were not better having him.

It sets in the direction because it gets rid of players who do not want to be at this club.
 
kouroux said:
No but I thought getting rid of him was setting us in the right direction. We are clearly worse, we have Odion Ighalo coming from the Chinese league. I'm not a Lukaku fan but getting rid of him without replacing him was stupid, better to have just kept him
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We played our best football without him.
 
romufc said:
Ighalo is a 6 month loan hardly a signing for the future.

Why have a £75m asset that you can sell and still be the same, we finished 6th last season with Lukaku so we were not better having him.

It sets in the direction because it gets rid of players who do not want to be at this club.
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Ighalo should never be at our club, that's my point. That's how clueless the whole club has become, getting rid of certain players without replacing them is crazy for me. No wonder we are fecking shite, the direction we are taking by getting rid of players who don't wanna stay leaves us with many other ones who are fecking shite but do wanna stay. Wanting to stay doesn't guarantee any quality performance just like wanting out doesn't mean the player won't perform.
 
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MackRobinson said:
Quick comment on the quality Italian Serie A. It may not be up to the standards of the PL but it is a good league. In the past two seasons, I started watching the Serie A and Bundesliga more than usual (in addition to PL and LaLiga) and I would say the Serie A has the best teams top to bottom than any other league expect the PL. Even though the defensive style of football it's known for is still used by many teams but many of the top teams are playing a more progressive attacking style of football. It's not the Bundesliga in terms of end to end attacking, nor does it have aesthetic quality of Spanish football, but it's not your Serie A of 10 years ago for sure.

The advantage of a player like Lukaku is that physically there are few defenders who can match up to him in the Serie A. It's a similar situation for Haaland in the Bundesliga. The VVDs, Laportes, MaGuires, and Rüdigers of football just aren't as plentiful in other leagues. Still the Serie A has very good defenders (Koulibaly, Manolas, Chiellini, Acerbi, etc) and it's not a farmer's league.
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Spot on
 
Poor management by Ole to sell Lukaku and not get an adequate replacement. Lukaku is a striker that will almost guarantee you 20 goals a season even with poor coaching. It is no surprise that he is doing well. Same with depay and Di Maria. We have had some terrible managers post Sir Alex. It is no surprise that we are doing poorly.

Ole moved Lukaku out wide and shunned him out of the team. Ole lacks emotional intelligence and it is no surprise that players are wanting to leave and not come to this current United team
 
Amadaeus said:
Poor management by Ole to sell Lukaku and not get an adequate replacement. Lukaku is a striker that will almost guarantee you 20 goals a season even with poor coaching. It is no surprise that he is doing well. Same with depay and Di Maria. We have had some terrible managers post Sir Alex. It is no surprise that we are doing poorly.

Ole moved Lukaku out wide and shunned him out of the team. Ole lacks emotional intelligence and it is no surprise that players are wanting to leave and not come to this current United team
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Yeah I feel Oles man management is very poor. Not just for motivation making them feel confident about themselfes etc. He is not giving them enough individual coaching either to improve their game and work better with his tactics. I guess his assistants should help with that, but our coaching staff as a unit do not do that well.
Fred has improved a bit so Carrick might deserve some credit for him, but he is pretty much the only one I feel coaching might have improved him recently.
 
Lukaku didn’t fit the playing style Ole wanted for our first team so he was benched. Lukaku did not want to be on the bench. Both of which are completely fair stances to take. The only real issue lies within us not getting a replacement. Even then, we likely wouldn’t be having this discussion if Rashford hadn’t gotten injured. I also think it’s probably fair to assume that Ole wanted a replacement but Woodward/Glazers didn’t deliver.

Ole isn’t blameless but let’s not rewrite history just because Lukaku is doing well at Inter now.
 
kouroux said:
No but I thought getting rid of him was setting us in the right direction. We are clearly worse, we have Odion Ighalo coming from the Chinese league. I'm not a Lukaku fan but getting rid of him without replacing him was stupid, better to have just kept him
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Not really we finished 6th last year with Lukaku only scoring 15 goals. Martial already has 12 despite being injured for months early in the season.
 
Vidyoyo said:
True. We played him in the wrong system but annoyingly it's not like we've done better since he left — our system is generally a mess so it's hard to say we've bettered ourselves by getting rid just yet.

This to me seems to be the reason for the polarisation. In a year or two we might be saying Lukaku WHO?! but right now we're basically watching our ex enjoying themselves while we silently hate how boring our own life is.
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What? We literally made him our main target man. Every ball went to him and all he did was either feck up with a poor first touch/ball control or with a miss.


Just because he's scoring doesn't mean he got better it just means he went to a weaker league. He's still the same fecking donkey
 
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