He doesn't have a good first touch though in comparison to many other top forwards. He has a lot of qualities that others don't possess, but that doesn't make it any less true. Don't know why people refuse to acknowledge it
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you are being disingenuous if you dismiss concerns about lukaku's touch, to be honest
Because the "proof" is disingenuous. The shit first touch brigade popped up after the first touch compilation using the same arguments as people who are obsessed with stats. "He'll ruin attacks, he'll lose the ball every time he gets it". I could very easily make a video of all Zlatan's shite touches from last season where he killed attacks or missed first time passes too. Such videos are only used to obfuscate the truth, it's obvious why oppo fans shared it en masse after he signed for us. The fact people are actually taking it as gospel is what I object to.
Does he have the best first touch of forwards? No. Is it as terrible as some people are at pains to say? No.
And you're being a massive drama queen if you act like it's a major issue.
Facebook scouting 
Claiming he's a great player just going by his stats is worse. If you have watched him, you'd know he has a bad first touch, is technically poor and lazy. There is nothing wrong in pointing out his shortcomings.
At United more often than not he's going to come up against teams that park the bus. He's lack of tidiness will make it harder for him find space or beat defenders. He's lack of hard work will make it harder for us to stop oppositions from building out from the back or win back possesion forcing us to drop back and be more defensive.
If he improves fair enough but as it stands, he lacks a lot of things a modern striker should have.
Edit: @fergieisold Last season, he ran a kilometer less than Zlatan per game, made one less tackle, no interception to Zlatan's 10 and lost the ball 584 times to Zlatan's 416. worth pointing Zlatan was being labeled lazy himself.
Sorry for replying here. reached my daily limit.
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how big an issue/concern it is its debatable at this point as we have simply not seen enough of him in our shirt, but it exists. we have seen a heavy touch mess up our attacks several times, i.e rooney, we want the kid to succeed but to act like people who are concerned with his touch have "barely seen him play" is crazy considering he lost possession for his team last season 584 times
How do they calculate loss of possession? It includes mispasses, headers failed to find his team mate, set pieces everything isn't it?
If you are gonna call him lazy lets present some evidence. Can you give me a comparison of him vs other strikers in the league in terms of work rate?
His first touch is bad in comparison to the most technical strikers out there (Zlatan, Lewandowski) but that doesn't mean he won't be scoring lots of goals for us.
His first touch is massively over blown. It's obviously inconsistent but fecking hell - his all round game is effective and if he's holding the ball up and banging in goals like he can who really cares.
To be honest it is still a massive concern. It doesn't mean he can't improve it or compensate for it through other ways.
As I've said before, it's definitely something that he can improve on but he has improved his overall game so much over the past few seasons, that I don't see it as an issue really. It's also become ridiculously blown out of proportion on here, but that's to be expected really.
Nope, it's definitely not a massive concern at all. It's something he can improve on but saying it's a massive concern is overstating it completely. Zlatan was often dreadful in possession at times last season, but he still managed to be an extremely effective player for us. Lukaku is a hell of a lot younger and has improved year-on-year, so I have no doubt it's something he can and will work on.
I have my hopes it will work out too, and I remain very supportive of him signing. But we can't brush off the concern of first touch under the carpet either. Ibra has an amazing first touch and yet he struggled in coping with a number of defenders around him as our build up play is too slow. I hope we can quicken it significantly this season (helped by the fact of Lukaku replacing Ibra too) so that Lukaku gets more space to play. Somewhat like Rooney even in his prime years had an inconsistent touch but managed to overcome it by finding pockets of space.
So this is the next step.
First it was scouting players off Football Manager. Then it became youtube highlights. Now it's Facebook memes.
The future is now!
Where does this lost possession stat come from? I have seen it quoted on planetfootball but no source for it no details on what it really means. For example Lukaku is clearly involved in a lot more aerial duels last year, if he wins the majority of them, but has no player around him then do those count as possession lost. Ibra is difficult to compare against, largely as he stands out compared to most strikers for his possession stats, when you look at Squawka for their possession stats, he is reasonably comparable to most players.
Genuinely I don't think people would like anyone unless they were named Morata. Its unclear whether we wanted Lukaku and/or Morata, but its clear that Morata was unavailable for whatever reason, this idea that Morata was available at a lower price hasn't been confirmed has it, as far as I know the figures quoted were all based on guesses. Maybe Madrid wanted De Gea plus 60m for him, who really knows.
Genuinely I don't think people would like anyone unless they were named Morata. Its unclear whether we wanted Lukaku and/or Morata, but its clear that Morata was unavailable for whatever reason, this idea that Morata was available at a lower price hasn't been confirmed has it, as far as I know the figures quoted were all based on guesses. Maybe Madrid wanted De Gea plus 60m for him, who really knows.
He'll be fine. He's not world class, but he is a good finisher and he'll score 20+ next season. It won't be especially pretty, but it will be 20+ nonetheless.
Our highest ever goalscorer? Excellent example.
No it didn't. That's being disingenuous. Unless you think the one person who made that video was the only person in the world to notice his erratic touch.
Are you for real?terrible post. see, this type of disingenuous argumentation is laughable. rooney scored 8 goals in all comps last year, his decline has been well documented and his poor touch was one of the salient points in said decline. just save yourself the keyboard strokes and mouse clicks.
I am hopeful that he will improve on it or that at least we can work around it as a team, we'll see how much of an issue it will be throughout the season really. i still maintain people's concerns regarding that aspect of his game are valid and that expressing them is by no means indication that they have barely seen him play. These threads get weird really quick and agendas take over but we should be able to talk about his weaknesses/strengths objectively.
Honestly, with all the touch talk and laziness talk, I still expect him to bang 30+ with ease.
With the extra games he'll be playing and better service he'll get in those games, I'm sure he'll break 30 in all comps easily.
And nobody will care about his touch then.
Same chat as always in this thread... 
How did he play yesterday? Anyone get to watch the game?
How did he play yesterday? Anyone get to watch the game?
He had a poor first touch for his goal
This is where we need to improve to get the best out of him. Apart from Pogba our service was pretty shit last year.
Happy for him to score. Also had some good moments in the link-up already.
There was a thing in an article the other day saying that the season before last he actually covered the least distance of every outfield premier league player? So at least he has improved last season massively in that respect.
Exactly, if people were hones about Zlatan, his touch and passing was inconsistent at best, but the goals masked it.
I think Lukaku's movement is better than Zlatans was, which will benefit the players behind, obviously the better runs, and more frequent runs the easier it is to create.
Even though the ball was running away from him, he rescued the situation by being able to change his mind. That quick thinking will over come many of the issues - especially if he is aware of it.
Let's not talk about Rooney's first touch because he's our highest ever goal scorer?No, let's not use Lukaku's first touch as a stick to constantly beat him with, as clearly, as someone like Rooney with an inconsistent touch throughout his entire career has shown, it means feck all if you can deliver goals consistently.
Fair enough. I have alluded to it before, that he can certainly improve that area of his game. But I maintain that for a player that's made such huge improvements - still with plenty of time on his side - he can, in my opinion, improve that area of his game and I'm confident that he will.
I rate him higher than some and that's fair enough but some of the stuff about his touch is being blown way out of proportion on here (by some).
He used to play a lot closer to goal and last season he was involved more in the build up play. He got 6 assists in the league and created a decent number of chances. I feel that's an area of his game that's massively improved since his WBA days, early Everton days.
I've been pleased with his overall play and the way he is already combining well with teammates. Of course the real test will be the highest level ie: title race and latter stages of the CL, where this club needs to be competing on a regular basis.
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