Lukaku's first touch

[Chesterlestreet]

Fact is that even if the more gloomy predictions turn out to be right, there’s no reason to doubt he’ll improve us significantly.

By which I mean the following: A player who scores consistently against “lesser” teams in the PL is worth his weight in gold if he keeps doing just that (scoring against “lesser” teams) for a title contender.

You win the league by not dropping points against “lesser” teams.

Long-term, it will obviously be a problem if it turns out that he can’t quite cut the mustard against the cream of Europe, but there you go - cross that bridge if and when. We realistically need to strengthen our current starting XI considerably both here and there in order to become a European powerhouse again.

 

[MThomas]

All in good time mate.

Once the "bad-touch" movement has been proven illegitimate we'll move on to something else. Such as "he needs to bulk up" or how poorly he executes the "dab" dance.

Christ..

Lukaku has a bad first touch, it's not exactly over or micro-analysing anything..If it's going to be an issue or not is a very different thing.

If he keeps banging in goals like he's done for Everton, no one is going to care less.

 

[KirkDuyt]

If anything Germany has been leading the way in terms of stats.

I demand a stat sheet detailing the stats about global stats usage per country!

 

[MThomas]

I'll take "lack of agility due to his size".

Also a potential problem.

 

[Hed Zitin]

Do us a favour and get rid of this thread please.

 

[Robbie Boy]

Do us a favour and get rid of this thread please.

Nah keep it for the agenda driven posters as a place to hang out after he has a bad game.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

I didn't notice it due to this thread though I noticed it due to the amount of times the ball he played was just behind his man.

All two of them?

 

[roonster09]

I watched his performance video again, there was barely a heavy touch in that video. Even the first goal, he didn't touch the ball. CB got the ball first.

Not sure where this first touch thing started, it's very annoying.

 

[P-Nut]

All two of them?

I think you need to watch the game again it happened at least 5 tines if not more.

 

[sullydnl]

Lukaku's touch is erratic, not bad.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

I think you need to watch the game again it happened at least 5 tines if not more.

Nope. That didn't happen.

 

[MThomas]

Lukaku's touch is erratic, not bad.

Clumsy as feck.

 

[lococol]

I think a lot of people are being harsh on Lukaku. Does anybody remember most of the attacking players touches in front of goal last season? To me, Lukaku already looks head and shoulders above all of them (as they were last year) except Zlatan and its looking like he may be back soon (hopefully).

 

[BusbyMalone]

What we should of done is bought the perfect player without any weaknesses or flaws. Very careless from the club.

 

[Dante]

A lie told often enough becomes the truth.

Unfortunately, the United forum is rife with mob mentality. Most threads could benefit from a liberal use of Occam's razor.

 

[P-Nut]

Nope. That didn't happen.

ok then

 

[red_john]

Conspiracy

 

[Sandikan]

Fact is that even if the more gloomy predictions turn out to be right, there’s no reason to doubt he’ll improve us significantly.

By which I mean the following: A player who scores consistently against “lesser” teams in the PL is worth his weight in gold if he keeps doing just that (scoring against “lesser” teams) for a title contender.

You win the league by not dropping points against “lesser” teams.

Long-term, it will obviously be a problem if it turns out that he can’t quite cut the mustard against the cream of Europe, but there you go - cross that bridge if and when. We realistically need to strengthen our current starting XI considerably both here and there in order to become a European powerhouse again.

People who measure him against Ibra seem to miss one tiny little detail.
We don't have a fit Ibra!

So we basically had a massive gap where "proven goalscorer" should be, so signing Lukaku of course strengthens us well.
Rashford or Martial may have stepped up, but most likely they'd have hit a short patch of form and then fallen away.

Lukaku is good at smashing the smaller teams, which last season we almost farcically couldn't do in the league.I'm still amazed we didn't win that Stoke home game. Ibra was through on goal in the first min, we missed sh!T tonnes of chances, and amazingly let them equalise. It should have been a 4-0 or 5-0 job.

 

[RedCurry]

Its the reason i would have prefered Morata. Still think he will score lots of goals though

I think the criticism of Lukaku's first touch becomes quite absurd when people qualify that with "Morata has better touch". No he doesn't.

I would happily concede that he's not at the same level at Zlatan, Aguero, Van Persie etc. but Morata has nothing on him.

 

[Chesterlestreet]

Lukaku's touch is erratic, not bad.

The nature of the more inane criticism of the man notwithstanding, this is surely a bit silly.

If it's erratic, it's bad. Pretty much. He's a player who needs it to be non-erratic in order for it to be good - so, yeah, erratic is actually bad.

Caveat: I think he'll turn out well for us and so forth. But the idea that his first touch isn't great seems, let's say, non-outlandish to me. He isn't blessed with flawless technique. The question is whether this matters all that much, but simply pointing out that he lacks something as a player is just stating a fact, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[ypsipeos]

Piss and moan, whine, whine, whineeee, piss, moan piss.

The end.

 

[sullydnl]

The nature of the more inane criticism of the man notwithstanding, this is surely a bit silly.

If it's erratic, it's bad. Pretty much. He's a player who needs it to be non-erratic in order for it to be good - so, yeah, erratic is actually bad.

Caveat: I think he'll turn out well for us and so forth. But the idea that his first touch isn't great seems, let's say, non-outlandish to me. He isn't blessed with flawless technique. The question is whether this matters all that much, but simply pointing out that he lacks something as a player is just stating a fact, nothing more, nothing less.

I think there's a difference between a player having a touch that's consistently average and a player whose touch fluctuates more wildly depending on their form.

I mean I wouldn't have said that peak Rooney had a bad touch but when he was off form his touch could be absolutely awful, shockingly so given how good it could be at other times.

Lukaku is (sort of) similar in that the quality of his touch fluctuates more than you'd expect depending on his form. Whereas some players (whether in good form or bad) tend to keep their fundamental skillset on a more even keel.

 

[horsechoker]

This is the spiritual successor to the baby elephant in the room thread.

 

[Moonred]

On the bright side, any good first touch would also mean activity in this thread.

 

[red_john]

Piss and moan, whine, whine, whineeee, piss, moan piss.

*Arnold Schwarzenegger voice* Stop Whinning

 

[OnlyTwoDaSilvas]

His first touch looks fine to me. It's his 2nd touch - the pass or the lay off - that looks a bit inconsistent. I think that is the case for a lot of centre forwards. Zlatan's first touch was superb, but some of his lay offs were frustratingly terrible.

 

[UnrelatedPsuedo]

If anything Germany has been leading the way in terms of stats.

I don't believe so mate. Most new metrics are coming straight from America.

There's still this belief there that football has decades of 'catching up' to do in terms of analysing effective output.

Even something as simple as what an assist is has been changed here without anyone really paying attention.

Read some of the stuff that gets put out for the MLS and college level football. It's ridiculous.

 

[Snow]

I feel sorry for Lukaku as he is going to be seen as Rooney's replacement. There are many diehard Rooney fans that just cant wait to pounce on him for every mistake that he makes or game that he does not score. He had better start the season firing on all cylinders or keep away from any websites such as ours.

If Lukaku breaks his leg a few games in he'll end up having a better season than Rooney had last season.

 

[lem8sh]

Every player has strengths and weaknesses. Lukakus first touch is a weakness whether we like it or not.

 

[kouroux]

He'll be fine. A lot of concerns which can make sense are getting blown out of proportions now. If you wanna see a striker with a horrible first touch just watch Brandao, am I right or what @JPRouve

 

[JPRouve]

He'll be fine. A lot of concerns which can make sense are getting blown out of proportions now. If you wanna see a striker with a horrible first touch just watch Brandao, am I right or what @JPRouve

Brandao is shambolic.

Even I think that they are going too far. The only problem with Lukaku is that at the absolute top level there is a chance that he looks like Mario Gomez and Higuain, he will be a good player but there is a point where a team needs more tidiness to break teams like Real Madrid or Bayern.

 

[markhrad]

I know its hard to do but maybe we could just wait and see how he plays when the season starts rather than judge him from 2 halves of early pre-season matches. Then again there's no fun in that and people will differ in how they display their excitement for the upcoming season.
Personally I cant wait to see how we look and I think Lukaku will destroy opposing defenses. I'm sure Mourinho can guide him into being Drogba-like.
To heck with his first touch all I want is that his last touch results in the opposing goalkeeper taking the ball out of the net.

 

[Litch]

Pure stupidity.

 

[Wicked_Badger]

Flip it on it's head- there are many a player with a flawless first touch that couldn't hit a cows arse with a banjo.

We have a few players with glorious touches - Mata, Mhiki, Rashford, Pogba, Herrera, (Ibra) etc. Hell, even DDG has a fairly decent first touch! Sometimes you need players with different skills.

Barring a complete disaster, he'll bang a very, very decent amount of goals away for us, clubfoot or not. And we'll all (apart from the numpties) be happy.

 

[Wicked_Badger]

I know its hard to do but maybe we could just wait and see how he plays when the season starts rather than judge him from 2 halves of early pre-season matches. Then again there's no fun in that and people will differ in how they display their excitement for the upcoming season.
Personally I cant wait to see how we look and I think Lukaku will destroy opposing defenses. I'm sure Mourinho can guide him into being Drogba-like.
To heck with his first touch all I want is that his last touch results in the opposing goalkeeper taking the ball out of the net.

Couldn't agree more.

 

[Loublaze]

Its the reason i would have prefered Morata. Still think he will score lots of goals though

You would've preferred a striker with an inferior goal record? Both 24 but Lukaku has scored more than twice the goals. Morata can't even keep Benzema off the pitch

 

[Loublaze]

Chicharitos first touch is not much better by comparison

 

[IFC 1905]

I want to see him and judge him live.

But I really need to see a good first touch in order to judge a player. It's one of the most important things I look at.

This was the first time I paid attention to Gabriel Jesus and I started rating him immediately

 

[roonster09]

Brandao is shambolic.

Even I think that they are going too far. The only problem with Lukaku is that at the absolute top level there is a chance that he looks like Mario Gomez and Higuain, he will be a good player but there is a point where a team needs more tidiness to break teams like Real Madrid or Bayern.

I think people are reading too much into this. Higuain was good enough to play in the team that made it to 2 Copa America finals only to lose in penalty shoot out, 1 CL final.

If we don't beat Madrid and Bayern, it's not because of players like Lukaku, it would be because of how inferior our overall team is and how we set up.

Bayern had Lewandowski for 4 years but couldn't beat any Spanish teams, Atletico had Torres/Gameiro as lead strikers and made CL finals only to lose in penalty shoot out.

Juventus made CL finals with Morata as one of their strikers, before that Atletico made CL finals with washed up Villa as one of their strikers. In 2013 Mandzukic was leading the line for Bayern and Lewandowski was in the losing Dortmund team.

We need to improve overall as a team, Lukaku is good enough striker at top level.

 

[roonster09]

I want to see him and judge him live.

But I really need to see a good first touch in order to judge a player. It's one of the most important things I look at.

This was the first time I paid attention to Gabriel Jesus and I started rating him immediately

Berbatov had probably the best first touch in the league but he wasn't half the player Rooney was.