A striker doesn't have to be offered many tap-ins to have good service. Depending on his profile, numerous balls in or around the box where he can work to get a shot off is enough.
‘Service’ for strikers
- Thread starter Rozay
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
So we want a striker who doesn't just score goals but also create chances for himself as if he doesn't need the rest of players ? Good luck finding that one to buy then.
Lukaku is doing a very good job that facilitate scoring for his teammates by occupying defenders and keeping them busy so that other players find better spaces. He has been clinical with several chances he got and by no means he got any tap ins, in fact he looks like the lowest striker in any top team that got chances for easy goals or taps in. His goals are all well taken and clinical finishes.
We all know he's a striker who thrives on crosses and we never provide that quality wise due to our great full backs.
Lukaku is doing a very good job that facilitate scoring for his teammates by occupying defenders and keeping them busy so that other players find better spaces. He has been clinical with several chances he got and by no means he got any tap ins, in fact he looks like the lowest striker in any top team that got chances for easy goals or taps in. His goals are all well taken and clinical finishes.
We all know he's a striker who thrives on crosses and we never provide that quality wise due to our great full backs.
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I understand what the OP is talking about some of you are being too touchy here.
Great strikers turn half chances into clear chances. Its a clear weakness in Lukaku's game. At two points yesterday he was played in and isolated with the last man and both of these chances ended up wasted. It seems like with Lukaku he needs clear chances to score when the ball is at his feet.
Yes the service could be better but he also can't be too reliant on his team to create clear cut openings all the time.
Great strikers turn half chances into clear chances. Its a clear weakness in Lukaku's game. At two points yesterday he was played in and isolated with the last man and both of these chances ended up wasted. It seems like with Lukaku he needs clear chances to score when the ball is at his feet.
Yes the service could be better but he also can't be too reliant on his team to create clear cut openings all the time.
Yeah, it's a fair point that's being made. Some are immediately interpreting this as a disguised attack on Lukaku, though. Service is a subjective term that depends on the ability of the player in question.
Well it kinda is tbh, there aren't many strikers who don't rely that heavily on good service to score from. The type of strikers who create things out of nothing are very rare. It's harsh to expect or hope to see Lukaku to do things what a few of them do
It was widely reported that he cost £75m + another £15m in easily attainable addons. So he will in all likelihood cost us £90m. There is no point in trying to deny that.
It is a wider topic than an ‘attack on Lukaku’. I think people are too touchy at times. It’s a simple football conversation, not an ‘attack’ on anyone.
Lukaku was used as an example, but he isn’t the first to have the lack of service defence made for him. People love to say how Liverpool play with a ‘free-flowing attack’ or whatever, but I would challenge anyone to look back at Salah’s 31 league goals and see how many of them are the result of a clear ‘chance being created’. From memory, not many at all. Certainly many have come from situations where he would receive very little criticism, if any, of he did NOT score.
I agree that it is naturally more rare to find forwards who create goals from little or nothing, but what teams exactly are supposed to have these rare forwards? Surely United should be amongst those few teams with such a striker? After all, it is rare in football for a team to have a £75m striker too. I would like a bit more from Lukaku, but again, this is a more general point.
I think for those opposing, I would like to see someone other than myself offer a definition of ‘service’ before we can really discuss in earnest. By the definition I offered in my OP, I maintain that it is not good enough for a top forward to be reliant upon this, so unless anyone has a different definition, and can say that this is still something that Lukaku, for example, does not receive, I think the point is fair.
Thing is though, as someone said before there are different types of strikers. Poachers with sharp movement and finishing in the box, big target men who play others in, ones who drift wide and run in between the full backs and centre backs, and then you have the wizards who can turn and run at anyone from any where and really shit the defenders up like Aguero or Suarez. Much as the latter type is great to watch and often also the most dangerous, Rashford and Martial are great examples of why that's not the only thing that matters. They don't score enough goals because their movement isn't sharp enough, and their hold up play isn't that amazing. They can twist any defenders blood given the chance, but they're nowhere near as effective in the box or at holding it up, or not really even at running at a full back and delivering something to be honest, as Lukaku is. Now you could argue the skills they lack are much more learnable than the ones Lukaku does, but the fact is until they show it then Lukaku is going to be our striker.
It's simple really, 'Lack of service' is a legitimate reason when the player is constantly getting into the right positions, but the final ball isn't good enough to reach him.
For me, Lukaku doesn't get into the right positions often enough and that's why he can't seem to find the chances. For example, he rarely makes runs into the six yard box and is almost always second to the ball after a clearance. He doesn't make runs beyond the defence often enough and his ball control isn't good enough to pull off quick one-twos on a consistent basis.
But he's still a decent striker. He finishes the chances he's supposed to finish. Just don't expect him to create something out of nothing or score a goal out of nowhere, because that's not his game.
For me, Lukaku doesn't get into the right positions often enough and that's why he can't seem to find the chances. For example, he rarely makes runs into the six yard box and is almost always second to the ball after a clearance. He doesn't make runs beyond the defence often enough and his ball control isn't good enough to pull off quick one-twos on a consistent basis.
But he's still a decent striker. He finishes the chances he's supposed to finish. Just don't expect him to create something out of nothing or score a goal out of nowhere, because that's not his game.
And despite your definition of what is "service", I still think you're too unfair. There is no need to define another as yours is fine but you're expecting him to display an aspect of football that is the hardest for striker.
Think there is something in between ‘wizard’ type personality. Harry Kane would hardly be described as a wizard, but he gets so many goals because no other striker probably has as many shots as him. With Lukaku, I feel he doesn’t even look like scoring often enough. Kane will typically work the keeper at least 3 or 4 times a game, where I think Lukaku seems to be closer to 1. It isn’t down to just great service at Spurs either, he gets shots away from little, and he will naturally get more goals like this.
Maybe it is the hardest, but why shouldn’t I expect a United striker, and second most expensive player in England to display this? I don’t think I’m being as unfair as others do personally.
And personally, I don’t even expect Lukaku to beat a couple of men and score or anything - just have enough ability to regularly get himself a yard and get a shot on target within 20 yards. There are other technical criticisms, like a general lack of finesse. Like, there are situations where I think he may need a subtle dink, but I don’t expect it from him. But that’s even another debate, and more specific to Lukaku. I think this one is more general of any top striker, and ultimately why Hernandez wasn’t good enough.
Given ‘service’ by my definition, I’d back Jermaine Defoe to score more goals than Lukaku any day. He isn’t a United striker though as that’s far from being enough.
Well yeah, Kane is pretty much only "world class" at shifting the ball out of his feet and striking it. All the rest of his game is just decent for me. Wouldn't say he has any weaknesses particularly.
Lukaku on the other hand clearly has a weak first touch. But he's much quicker than Kane, has quick feet and can deliver a mean cross. Couple that with the fact his finishing is still very sharp and he's still a big unit who can bully defenders in the air at times and he's not exactly a million miles from Kane. As evidenced by his goal and assist numbers tbf.
Frustrates me when I hear people say they would score x amount of goals in the PL with the right service despite having gotten nowhere near pro football. Service works two ways, yes you need good delivery and team-mates to pick you out otherwise your never going to score but if you a striker who doesn't try to attack space, makes poor runs or generally doesn't want to be found then you can't be provided with good service.
The likes of RVN, Inzaghi, Hernandez etc who are known as clinical finishers are masters at what they do in terms of finding space in the box, anticipating where the ball will go etc. There's a phrase 'He's always in the right places at the right time' but in reality, the striker will make that same run 7 times in a game and not receive the ball, then on the 8th he will receive the ball and score hence people saying he was in the right place at the right time, does that mean he was in the wrong place the other 7 times?
Having played quite high up as a striker, it's a different mentality than say playing on the wing or midfield, you need to keep making the same runs time and time again, most of the time to no avail, to get your rewards. You see regularly in the PL, strikers going through great confidence bursts and scoring goals, it's because they are not inhibited by the fear of failure, as a striker when your expected to score, fans on your back etc, you have in the back of your mind the prospect of missing rather than scoring, so them lovely whipped balls across the box you are not attacking in case you miss a 'sitter' , if you are going through a great run of goals, then you are thinking of adding more and knowing you can afford to miss a few as you have previous goals in the bank.
The likes of RVN, Inzaghi, Hernandez etc who are known as clinical finishers are masters at what they do in terms of finding space in the box, anticipating where the ball will go etc. There's a phrase 'He's always in the right places at the right time' but in reality, the striker will make that same run 7 times in a game and not receive the ball, then on the 8th he will receive the ball and score hence people saying he was in the right place at the right time, does that mean he was in the wrong place the other 7 times?
Having played quite high up as a striker, it's a different mentality than say playing on the wing or midfield, you need to keep making the same runs time and time again, most of the time to no avail, to get your rewards. You see regularly in the PL, strikers going through great confidence bursts and scoring goals, it's because they are not inhibited by the fear of failure, as a striker when your expected to score, fans on your back etc, you have in the back of your mind the prospect of missing rather than scoring, so them lovely whipped balls across the box you are not attacking in case you miss a 'sitter' , if you are going through a great run of goals, then you are thinking of adding more and knowing you can afford to miss a few as you have previous goals in the bank.
You see Suarez yesterday, then compare it to having Benzema as striker. I don't think Benzema would score those two goals. Good striker would make an ordinary chance to be a dangerous one.
Just like in every other profession. A skillful pianist can make a $100 piano sounds beautiful, while a less skillful one needs a $1000 piano to produce comparable sound.
Just like in every other profession. A skillful pianist can make a $100 piano sounds beautiful, while a less skillful one needs a $1000 piano to produce comparable sound.
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Because I don't expect players to suddenly display a type of football they never gave hint of displaying ever before. Lukaku has already improved on many things since last season at Everton and he will develop even more hopefully. I just didn't expect him to show me brutal changes in his game just because he cost that much money or because he started to play for Man United.
I cant deny what I didnt know. Show me reputable links about this extra £15M
I reckon over the course of the season, Kane probably has about 3 times more shots on target. Some may say that’s a service issue, but I think it’s down to the strikers.
I agree that Kane doesn’t have many obvious flash attributes. Trust me, I didn’t used to get it myself, but now I do. Writing it down on paper as recently as a year ago perhaps, there’s no mathematics to him being much better than Lukaku. But he is though. He’s just a far bigger goal threat. Lukaku has greater physical attributes, that’s about it, but Kane is technically much better. His tidiness with his touch allows him to gather the ball and shoot far quicker, which means having shots blocked by defenders far less, and far more goals. His link play is also better.
I get that. I don’t think we disagree here. I don’t expect it from Lukaku either, but I do expect it from a United striker of his cost, which is why I don’t believe he’s good enough. If I can openly say I don’t expect things from him that I would from top level forwards, then I would prefer a forward I could expect those things from.
Everybody wants a Henry in their team but such players are not easy to find. Much easier to find a player with nose for goal (not that consistent 25+ goals per season strikers are either).
That's pretty much exactly what I said though. He's world class at shifting the ball out of his feet and shooting. Lukaku isn't. But Lukaku still clearly has a mean finish as evidenced by all the goals he scores.
And yeah naturally having a better touch should make Kane a better link man but they're both just good rather than world class at linkup, hardly a massive gulf between them.
And if I needed to bully Dejan Lovren I know who I'd pick.
Said this before but good service is directly linked to good movement. That's why strikers like Cristiano or Cavani get so many chances. It's not that their teams are made up of amazing creators who consistently put them in front of goal, they give their teammates more and better chances to put them in front of goal. And many times they can turn "normal" balls into the box into great service
About Lukaku, i also said before that i think his biggest problem is that he's too heavy, and that has a negative impact on his short-term stamina - he needs a bit too long to recover from high intensity actions and that impacts his ability to remain present and active within an attacking play
Throw in the fact he's a selfless player who does quite a bit of tracking back, pressing and movemente for his teammates and that's the main reason why he's scored 27 goals instead of 37.
Frankly, i wasn't fully convinced of him for a big team before this season, but now i think he's worth every penny you spent on him. With a more dominant team behind that could play more for him and ask him to play less for the team and more for himself he'd easily score 35/40+ goals a season.
Should work with a fitness specialist to lose 10 kgs while keeping his strength in the summer, and see if it improves his stamina and recovery. The guy working with NBA big men these days could do well for him
About Lukaku, i also said before that i think his biggest problem is that he's too heavy, and that has a negative impact on his short-term stamina - he needs a bit too long to recover from high intensity actions and that impacts his ability to remain present and active within an attacking play
Throw in the fact he's a selfless player who does quite a bit of tracking back, pressing and movemente for his teammates and that's the main reason why he's scored 27 goals instead of 37.
Frankly, i wasn't fully convinced of him for a big team before this season, but now i think he's worth every penny you spent on him. With a more dominant team behind that could play more for him and ask him to play less for the team and more for himself he'd easily score 35/40+ goals a season.
Should work with a fitness specialist to lose 10 kgs while keeping his strength in the summer, and see if it improves his stamina and recovery. The guy working with NBA big men these days could do well for him
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I see what you're saying, but considering what we're aiming for, we have to compare him to strikers of other top teams:
Benzema, Suarez, Firmino, Lewandowski and Aguero. All of those are capable of creating their own chances through using their own skill. Even Cavani isn't half bad and PSG have Mbappe ready to take over after him. Juve, with Higuain, are the only top team I'd say use someone similar to a poacher up top, but even that is balanced by the fact they have Dybala playing close to him. Obviously, it's not a prerequisite, as players like Kane are very good, but if the opposition can starve them of the typical 'striker' chances, as we saw against Spurs recently, they can end up looking fairly ordinary. That's a big problem as without that extra bit of magic, the performance of a striker will be heavily dependent on the rest of the team. That obviously goes for any player, but with a lone poacher, if the team isn't playing well enough to create chances for them, you might as well be playing with one less player a lot of the time as it's unlikely they'll do anything on their own. In clutch moments, I'd say it's important that, unless you're a perfectly drilled team in attack with a very clinical striker, you need all of your attackers to be able to pull something out of the bag and win the game. Goals like Suarez's a few years ago against PSG, where he nutmegged Luiz are an example of such. (can't remember how close it was when he scored tbf, but that's besides the point). If we want to reach that upper echelon again, I'd say it's fair enough to want Lukaku to do more in that regard.
In the strictest sense of it, a striker will ultimately be judged by how well he converts the chances created by and for him.
The truly great strikers we have seen have, almost without exception, relied on being properly 'serviced'. The truly great managers have recognized great strikers and built their teams in such ways as to ensure those strikers are adequately 'serviced'.
You cannot have a great striker without great 'servicing'. Let's stick to only chances they created themselves and Messi and Ronaldo's stats wouldn't be as stunning as they are today. This of course, takes nothing away from their abilities to craft chances for themselves.
Just yesterday, the match commentator was talking about how Jordi Albi has assisted Lionel Messi NINE times this season. Let that sink in, nine times. We are talking about a full back. Let's not talk about the services Messi has received from the Barcelona midfield and his co-attackers. Is he immensely gifted? Of course he is. But we will never be talking about his goal scoring stats without the good 'servicing' he constantly gets. The same can be said about Ronaldo. I remember when he had Ozil feeding him constantly. That happened to be Ozil's star seasons. After Ozil, he has had a cast of Modric, Kroos, Isco, etc, servicing him plus the attacking full backs of Madrid including the incredibly talented Marcello.
What am I on to? It is my firm belief that strikers, even the very best, constantly need to be well serviced and it is unfair to judge a striker that is starved of them. My take on Lukaku is that the team can do a lot better in terms of creating chances for him. He is a damn good striker in my opinion and once the team gets better in terms of creating chances for him, people will realize how good he really is.
As for the chance he missed yesterday, I have seen worse from better strikers. It's football.
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You don't really know any of those players do you?
What do you disagree with? Their all-around game being good? Benzema's declined obviously.
Somebody should pop on youtube and post videos of all the goals scored this season by Lukaku, Kane, Lewandowski, Cavani, Cristiano, Higuain and Salah
And we can play find the differences then(hint: there are almost none)
And we can play find the differences then(hint: there are almost none)
Not seeing it with Higuain, Cavani and even Firmino I'm sorry.
I don't disagree with the general point that a Utd striker would ideally be able to have to his game but this is his first season at a club of this magnitude. If you expect or even for a player to do things he's not used to in his first big season then all you're doing is setting yourself for disappointment. Just because he started to play for us, it doesn't mean a certain aspect of football would pop up out of nowhere in his arsenal.
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Look at the numbers put up by Benzema this season. Then look at the goals scored by Lewandowski and Cavani. Then look at Higuain(actually by far the most complete player of the lot, and the one that created the highest % of his goals by himself)
Firmino is a totally different type of player. He wouldn't be putting up big numbers as the primary scorer on a big team. He gets on the end of chances about as much as Lukaku, if not less. His numbers are thriving because of liverpool's turbocharged attack(of which he is a key cog of course)
Lukaku was a bad buy in my opinion, he lacks finesse balance and seems to have concrete legs, you could compare him to mario gomez but he probably had better technique while lacking the pace of Lukaku. We should have groomed Martial as our cf but even when Lukaku is dropped Rashford gets the cf position.Under mourinho there has been a trend to praise hard working players without much technique and bash players that doesnt work as hard but is technically top class, Martial also has very good hold up play and is good linking up around the box and would probably be on the same goals as lukaku while offering much more.
Yeah, that's fair enough, I didn't expect it from Lukaku at all, so this isn't me venting my frustrations with him, but I do feel that as we (hopefully) return to our former heights in the coming years, we might review the striker position to take that next step.
That is true tbh, although I still think subjectivity applies. You can speak about the assists Messi receives, for example, but there is a separate debate about the validity of ‘assist’ stats. Messi requires assistance, but that assistance is just a regular supply of the ball within 20 yards of goal. You can rack up assists very easily playing with him because you don’t need to create a sitter. He receives the ball and then scores from situations where others wouldn’t even fashion a shot. Just like that, someone gets another assist. If you get the ball to Messi’s feet in and around the box, preferably (although not necessarily) quickly enough so that there are many defenders between him and goal, he will regularly create space for himself and score. He has been ‘serviced’, but not necessarily in a different way to many situations we put Lukaku in where he is unable to fashion a shot on goal, let alone score. Of course, Messi is better than everyone, not just Lukaku.
I'm all for it once our more urgent needs are taken care of (full backs and a Carrick replacement). Striving for improvement (by buying another or developping the player) is a must every season.
Even that will be tough. Wasn’t Lovren subbed after half an hour at Wembley after being thoroughly molested by Kane?!That's pretty much exactly what I said though. He's world class at shifting the ball out of his feet and shooting. Lukaku isn't. But Lukaku still clearly has a mean finish as evidenced by all the goals he scores.
And yeah naturally having a better touch should make Kane a better link man but they're both just good rather than world class at linkup, hardly a massive gulf between them.
And if I needed to bully Dejan Lovren I know who I'd pick.
I guess we disagree. I don't think you need to put them on a plate for lukaku and I personally don't understand how anyone who has watched him over his whole career would think that. I just think we are a very negative team and let teams get comfortable in defensive shape when we have the ball. There are certain strikers that might do well in that environment, but no many. Alexis for me is proof of this. One of the players in the league looks terrible in our system. Says a lot for Lukaku being a much better player than our system allows him to be
I wasn't specifically talking about this season, moreso all of those strikers at their peaks. My point wasn't that they do it all the time, but that they're all very much capable of it, giving the opposition more to think about. Higuain was a bad call on my part I'll admit. Haven't watched him for a while (apart from against Spurs and Real), so I probably shouldn't have bothered mentioning him.
Not sure I see your point. As you said, his numbers are thriving and that's without him being the primary scorer. If that team was centered around him instead, with a player doing his current job for him, surely his numbers would still be pretty good?
Agreed.
This is/was my thinking about his purchase too. I understand it though, we were desperate for a striker in a poor market for strikers. Lukaku and Morata both had their flaws, and I think neither were outstanding candidates, but we’re all that was there, once Mbappé wasn’t an option. All things considered, we got the right one I think, but my fear at the time was that given age and cost, Lukaku would have to be our striker for years and he’s ultimately likely to fall short of being a very top forward.
I think we were caught in an awkward place last summer. A gap needed to be bridged between Zlatan and Rashford. By all accounts, we were not after a CF at all before Zlatan did his cruciate, with Griezmann being the main target and Rashford/Martial being the succession plan for Zlatan. The injury was terrible for us as Rashford wasn’t cooked yet, and ideally, we would have continued with Zlatan and let Rash or Martial cook a bit longer. Both players have far greater potential than Lukaku, but due to timing and sequence of events, we are less likely to now see one of them make it as a top CF, not here anyway.
Lukaku scored quite a bit of "solo" goals at Everton though. I agree his all around game isn't as good as Lewandowski's or Higuain's or Kane's, but it's not much lesser than Cavani's for example. The real issue is that Cavani is more active within his team's attacking plays throughout the game. Lukaku's issue is that he doesn't get on the end of enough chances. By which i mean he doesn't attack the ball/space enough. It's not a matter of poor movement because his movement is good, he just doesn't move enough, doesn't make enough runs
I don't think Firmino would score more if he were their main scorer. The whole reason he's not their main scorer is because he's not good enough at it
We create significantly less chances than the rest of the top 6 so it's probably no coincidence that the top scoring strikers are Salah, Kane and Aguero.
The question is whether Lukaku is hindering the number of chances created either by his involvement in the build up play or getting in the right position to get a chance on goal. It's difficult to answer but i'm not convinced that just putting Aguero up front for us instead would dramatically increase our goal tally.
This article was interesting (if you don't like 'expected goals' statistics don't click)
https://www.theringer.com/2018/1/12...er-city-goal-scoring-expected-finishing-skill
The question is whether Lukaku is hindering the number of chances created either by his involvement in the build up play or getting in the right position to get a chance on goal. It's difficult to answer but i'm not convinced that just putting Aguero up front for us instead would dramatically increase our goal tally.
This article was interesting (if you don't like 'expected goals' statistics don't click)
https://www.theringer.com/2018/1/12...er-city-goal-scoring-expected-finishing-skill
Okay.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/jul/07/chelsea-romelu-lukaku-offer-match-manchester-united
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2017/07/10/romelu-lukaku-completes-75m-manchester-united-move/
http://www.espn.com/soccer/soccer-t...uld-break-paul-pogbas-transfer-record-sources
https://www.manchestereveningnews.c...anchester-united-lukaku-transfer-fee-13311978