Jed I. Knight
The Mos Eisley Hillbilly
It makes no sense to look at a isolated chances from the perspective of xG. It doesn't take into account the fact that the keeper was gone when Lukaku finished, which sort of impacts how big of a chance it is. I do agree that Alli's chance was just as bad of a miss though.I think people are being a bit harsh on that miss in the first half - that was a much more difficult chance than it seemed ... going away from goal and on his right foot so the ball will naturally curl away from the post. xG had it as a 0.28 chance, which makes it one a star striker can score but not reliably.
Kane missed a 0.36 chance (the header in the 2nd half) and Alli missed 0.64 (when he rounded De Gea). Both were substantially worse misses than Lukaku's.
It was an open goal, he should have scored. He didn't, and it cost us. If it was a one off, it wouldn't be worrying, be he also couldn't convert the chance just after Kane's goal, and he completely fluffed the finish and failed to test Lloris from ten yards out after Luke Shaw's cutback pass in the first half. All of these are opportunities where we need our striker to do better, if we want to win games like these.
Hopefully it's just a bad slump. Realistically, I don't think Lukaku will ever be good enough to be the lone striker in a team challenging for the top honours.