Romelu Lukaku image 9

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2018-19 Performances


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4.8 Season Average Rating
Appearances
45
Goals
15
Assists
3
Yellow cards
5
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mav_9me

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I haven't read the whole thread but I'm assuming there's fair number of people blasting him.

Now I'm not his biggest fan but he is another one who has raised his game since ole and turned it around. He had scored all kinds of goals in the last 3 matches before this. Even in this game had so many chances. The bigger worry would be if he wasn't at the end of chances.
 

cyberman

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I haven't read the whole thread but I'm assuming there's fair number of people blasting him.

Now I'm not his biggest fan but he is another one who has raised his game since ole and turned it around. He had scored all kinds of goals in the last 3 matches before this. Even in this game had so many chances. The bigger worry would be if he wasn't at the end of chances.
Yeah, the whole top 6 thing would apply if he was getting marked out of games with Rom not being good enough to trouble their defences.
But he had Arsenals backline on toast, he was our best attacker on the day and he gets shit on. I'm not surprised he and Rashford looked jaded, the amount of running they got through 4 days earlier was ridiculous. Thats twice in a few months that he's been our best attacker away at The Emirates ffs yet the under performing v top 6 stat gets trotted out (gleefully i might add) as if he's a non factor.
It's unfair to explain away the performance of the side with tiredness etc then to jump on Lukaku as if he's a separate entity.
I like how Rom is playing, he's the focal point of some great attacking moves over the last month that we were told he would definitely slow down or out right feck up.
Let's see how he progresses.
 

Reddevildans

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Nonsense! How many did RVN or Ronaldo score against the big teams?
If those chances were presented to ronaldo, RVP or RVN, do you think they would have missed them? We are talking about 3 very good chances. Sure they might have missed one or two. Not only the Arsenal game but think back to other big games. The likes of Rooney and RVN thrived in big games. Lukaku has some sort of mental block. I'm not faulting his effort at all .As long as he's getting the chances things may change but we can't afford our elite striker screwing up big chances in big games.
 

11101

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Yeah, the whole top 6 thing would apply if he was getting marked out of games with Rom not being good enough to trouble their defences.
But he had Arsenals backline on toast, he was our best attacker on the day and he gets shit on. I'm not surprised he and Rashford looked jaded, the amount of running they got through 4 days earlier was ridiculous. Thats twice in a few months that he's been our best attacker away at The Emirates ffs yet the under performing v top 6 stat gets trotted out (gleefully i might add) as if he's a non factor.
It's unfair to explain away the performance of the side with tiredness etc then to jump on Lukaku as if he's a separate entity.
I like how Rom is playing, he's the focal point of some great attacking moves over the last month that we were told he would definitely slow down or out right feck up.
Let's see how he progresses.
Luckily for our rivals having Arsenal's backline on toast doesn't get us 3 points.
 

cyberman

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Luckily for our rivals having Arsenal's backline on toast doesn't get us 3 points.
It does if you want to win the game.
Look, we have a fantastic big game record over the last 18 months. It's really stretching the point in claiming Lukaku is holding us back from competing v the top 6 when we routinely beat the top 6 with Rom in the side.
He's improving his movement, his interplay and positional play since Ole took charge. Isn't that what we wanted? It wasn't about goals when Rom scores, he needs to be better alround to help the way United want to play. He then does that perfectly for for the last 4 games then he gets criticized because goals are the be all and end all all of a sudden after he has an off day with chances he's made a career of gobbling up.
There's even posters playing down his PSG performance for feck sake.
 

CherryBoy

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If those chances were presented to ronaldo, RVP or RVN, do you think they would have missed them? We are talking about 3 very good chances. Sure they might have missed one or two. Not only the Arsenal game but think back to other big games. The likes of Rooney and RVN thrived in big games. Lukaku has some sort of mental block. I'm not faulting his effort at all .As long as he's getting the chances things may change but we can't afford our elite striker screwing up big chances in big games.
Ronaldo's stats against the big sides were mediocre! Remember?
 

VeevaVee

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Ronaldo's stats against the big sides were mediocre! Remember?
Ronaldo wasn't up front so it was easier for a good team to keep him at bay/mark him out of the game. If he gets the chances Lukaku gets, he puts them away. Seems pretty mad to even mention him though. If Lukaku had the impact Ronaldo did week in week out his top 6 record would be forgiven.
 
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tomaldinho1

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It does if you want to win the game.
Look, we have a fantastic big game record over the last 18 months. It's really stretching the point in claiming Lukaku is holding us back from competing v the top 6 when we routinely beat the top 6 with Rom in the side.
He's improving his movement, his interplay and positional play since Ole took charge. Isn't that what we wanted? It wasn't about goals when Rom scores, he needs to be better alround to help the way United want to play. He then does that perfectly for for the last 4 games then he gets criticized because goals are the be all and end all all of a sudden after he has an off day with chances he's made a career of gobbling up.
There's even posters playing down his PSG performance for feck sake.
For the last two seasons, this sadly isn't true. Whatever happened to him when he came here (I don't think he was great first season either but at least he was scoring relatively regularly to make up for it) has impacted his entire game. He has improved under Ole but we shouldn't be praising someone for going from a 4/10 to a 5/10 performance overall if that makes sense. Let's see how the remainder of the season unfolds as we're now under pressure (in a good way) because we're actually in the top 4 race, in the CL QFs and latter stages of the FA cup and need him to really grab the opportunity and find some consistency. If he does that, I'll be ecstatic but I personally just don't see it happening.

On the PSG performance, there's nothing to play down. He scored two crucial goals which were incredibly lucky (back pass & Buffon error) and we, as a team, continued that good luck with the VAR penalty and general poor finishing from PSG. It wasn't on the same level of fortune as the Spurs game but let's not pretend we didn't get 3 goals gifted to us - overall it was more stoic than stand out, and that goes for the whole team not just Rom.
 

Cassidy

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We need better but not sure there is better available....
 

Andersons Dietician

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I often find this critiscm of he doesn’t do it against the big sides a little weird. He went from West Brom to Everton. Hardly teams you really expect to be scoring that often against the big sides but he was scoring against them. Then he comes to us where he and others had to play ridiculous defensive route 1 football or extremely defensive against the other big teams, which wasn’t going to lend itself to anyone consistently scoring.

He then scores 2 against PSG and a few days later misses a couple and we are back to never does it against the big teams or in the big moments the needle just smashes from extreme to extreme.
 

Wolf8312

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Lukaku is a beast. He had a great world cup, and united would be out of the champions leauge, and alot lower down the table without him. The lack of gratitude towards him is both astonishing, and baffling to be honest.
Very unfairly treated by many united fans, who seem to feel the need to keep on singling him out (depsite having played better than almost anyone pogba, and rashford included in the last 3 or 4 games) probably because they feel it more important to be proved right (eg- I told you so he's rubbish) than to actually support a player who could well be negatively affected confidence wise, by such constant villification (he's mentioned it in the press) and persecution by his own fans. Can't be easy.
Lukaku is in the team now, because he has won his place back through hard work, and determination, but most of all, because he's a truly gifted player.
How is it people cannot see that?
Rooney, uniteds best ever goal scorer, had numerous and prolonged dips in performance/confidence where he would go ages without scoring. All forwards do. Each and every one, they all have bad games, and miss plenty of chances, when having them.
It is just a fact of life for any center forward, as anyone who has ever played that position knows. You miss a few chances, and then each chance after that becomings increasingly difficult and it gets to be a bit of a vicious circle.
Big picture wise, the barometer is how many goals a forward gets in a season.
 

GifLord

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Lukaku is a beast. He had a great world cup, and united would be out of the champions leauge, and alot lower down the table without him. The lack of gratitude towards him is both astonishing, and baffling to be honest.
Very unfairly treated by many united fans, who seem to feel the need to keep on singling him out (depsite having played better than almost anyone pogba, and rashford included in the last 3 or 4 games) probably because they feel it more important to be proved right (eg- I told you so he's rubbish) than to actually support a player who could well be negatively affected confidence wise, by such constant villification (he's mentioned it in the press) and persecution by his own fans. Can't be easy.
Lukaku is in the team now, because he has won his place back through hard work, and determination, but most of all, because he's a truly gifted player.
How is it people cannot see that?
Rooney, uniteds best ever goal scorer, had numerous and prolonged dips in performance/confidence where he would go ages without scoring. All forwards do. Each and every one, they all have bad games, and miss plenty of chances, when having them.
It is just a fact of life for any center forward, as anyone who has ever played that position knows. You miss a few chances, and then each chance after that becomings increasingly difficult and it gets to be a bit of a vicious circle.
Big picture wise, the barometer is how many goals a forward gets in a season.
He was decent against Brazil, shit against England and great against Panama(2goals) and Tunisia(2goals) -> He basically only played great against shitty cannon fodder teams
Only counting the last 4 games? What about the last 6months of borderline mediocrity?
 

Raven

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This thread is a train wreck. Every single striker, in history, has had games like this. I've watched Messi miss 3 or 4 easy chances in a game for feck sake. His all around game was good, he just never got his goal, it happens.
 

Alemar

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Greenwood was ill yesterday, missed the youth game because of it
Do we have at least anyone to be on the bench as a forward then? Ok, Rashford and Martial duo up front, but who would be on the bench?
 

Canagel

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we can cope if Lingard returns. Martial/Lingard/Rashford/Greenwood is more than enough to get the job done againdt wolves.
 

Wolf8312

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He was decent against Brazil, shit against England and great against Panama(2goals) and Tunisia(2goals) -> He basically only played great against shitty cannon fodder teams
Only counting the last 4 games? What about the last 6months of borderline mediocrity?
He played great against the lower teams, and was brilliant against Brazil. He was also excellent and proved instrumental in the win against Japan which sent them through. That certainly was not an easy or insignificant match, as Japan we’re brilliant in that game.

I think like most premiership players he tired towards the end of the tournament, or had a few off games, but so what?

Few players had a better World Cup than he did. Truth is people, especially football fans, are dogmatic and seldom change their opinions no matter how much evidence comes along to the contrary. Especially if they have already publicly declared their opinions online in places like this. It almost begins to feel as if they actually want their own player to do badly, just so they can feel, and show themselves exonerated in their original statements and opinions.

I was watching the match thread the other day, and watched them all crawl back out of the woodwork, even despite Lukaku being one of the best players on the pitch. It’s a joke.
 
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CherryBoy

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Lukaku is a beast. He had a great world cup, and united would be out of the champions leauge, and alot lower down the table without him. The lack of gratitude towards him is both astonishing, and baffling to be honest.
Very unfairly treated by many united fans, who seem to feel the need to keep on singling him out (depsite having played better than almost anyone pogba, and rashford included in the last 3 or 4 games) probably because they feel it more important to be proved right (eg- I told you so he's rubbish) than to actually support a player who could well be negatively affected confidence wise, by such constant villification (he's mentioned it in the press) and persecution by his own fans. Can't be easy.
Lukaku is in the team now, because he has won his place back through hard work, and determination, but most of all, because he's a truly gifted player.
How is it people cannot see that?
Rooney, uniteds best ever goal scorer, had numerous and prolonged dips in performance/confidence where he would go ages without scoring. All forwards do. Each and every one, they all have bad games, and miss plenty of chances, when having them.
It is just a fact of life for any center forward, as anyone who has ever played that position knows. You miss a few chances, and then each chance after that becomings increasingly difficult and it gets to be a bit of a vicious circle.
Big picture wise, the barometer is how many goals a forward gets in a season.
Confirmational bias, look it up!

This is a very common issue when analyzing societal problems.
 
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roonster09

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He was in good form and then got injured. We really are unlucky with injuries.

Hopefully he will be back after International break with proper rest.
 

charlenefan

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Only a sore foot according to Ole, doesn't sound like the end of the world
 

11101

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He didn't respond.
Because I'm not a scout.


I'll put it out there that if this injury sidelines him for a few games and Lingard, Rashford and Martial start playing together again, our football will improve.
 

Wolf8312

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Confirmational bias, look it up!

This very common problem when analysing societal problems.
On the PSG performance, there's nothing to play down. He scored two crucial goals which were incredibly lucky (back pass & Buffon error) and we, as a team, continued that good luck with the VAR penalty and general poor finishing from PSG.
You see this is the point! Confirmation bias is exactly right. No matter what happens, you guys will find some way to dismiss his success, and twist the facts to support your own argument. Winning the argument is the main motivation.

Not that Lukaku applied pressure, harried, and battled his way to the ball, or rushed in for a follow up, and it payed off, but that he simply got lucky, and nabbed a couple of fluke goals! If it was any other player at all, you would not be feeling the need to rationalize goals that he fully deserved. When the 'doesn't score in big games' argument falls to pieces try 'doesen't score big goals' in big matches instead!
 
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tomaldinho1

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You see this is the point! Confirmation bias is exactly right. No matter what happens, you guys will find some way to dismiss his success, and twist the facts to support your own argument. Winning the argument is the main motivation.

Not that Lukaku applied pressure, harried, and battled his way to the ball, or rushed in for a follow up, and it payed off, but that he simply got lucky, and nabbed a couple of fluke goals! If it was any other player at all, you would not be feeling the need to rationalize goals that he fully deserved. When the 'doesn't score in big games' argument falls to pieces try 'doesen't score big goals' in big matches instead!
I don't understand - I'm not being critical of his performance. My point is we were hugely lucky. Which part of the below do you disagree with?

"He scored two crucial goals which were incredibly lucky (back pass & Buffon error) and we, as a team, continued that good luck with the VAR penalty and general poor finishing from PSG. It wasn't on the same level of fortune as the Spurs game but let's not pretend we didn't get 3 goals gifted to us - overall it was more stoic than stand out, and that goes for the whole team not just Rom."
 

Wolf8312

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I don't understand - I'm not being critical of his performance. My point is we were hugely lucky. Which part of the below do you disagree with?

"He scored two crucial goals which were incredibly lucky (back pass & Buffon error) and we, as a team, continued that good luck with the VAR penalty and general poor finishing from PSG. It wasn't on the same level of fortune as the Spurs game but let's not pretend we didn't get 3 goals gifted to us - overall it was more stoic than stand out, and that goes for the whole team not just Rom."
But you have completely taken what you said out of context, by chopping off the first paragraph! Your full quote was-

"For the last two seasons, this sadly isn't true. Whatever happened to him when he came here (I don't think he was great first season either but at least he was scoring relatively regularly to make up for it) has impacted his entire game. He has improved under Ole but we shouldn't be praising someone for going from a 4/10 to a 5/10 performance overall if that makes sense. Let's see how the remainder of the season unfolds as we're now under pressure (in a good way) because we're actually in the top 4 race, in the CL QFs and latter stages of the FA cup and need him to really grab the opportunity and find some consistency. If he does that, I'll be ecstatic but I personally just don't see it happening.
On the PSG performance, there's nothing to play down.
He scored two crucial goals which were incredibly lucky (back pass & Buffon error) and we, as a team, continued that good luck with the VAR penalty and general poor finishing from PSG. It wasn't on the same level of fortune as the Spurs game but let's not pretend we didn't get 3 goals gifted to us - overall it was more stoic than stand out, and that goes for the whole team not just Rom.
"
And I never said you were being critical of his performance excatly.

Respectfully, what you wrote above, to me seems as if you were saying he's really a poor player, whose goals against PSG were lucky. As that is what it does say.
 
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