I never said he wasn't, he is still not a smart player.
9
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 45
- Goals
- 15
- Assists
- 3
- Yellow cards
- 5
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
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Never mind his terrible excuse for a touch the most annoying thing for me is his constant pointing to other players to tell them where to pass. He reminds me of the people with the table tennis paddles that direct planes to their parking spot.
He doesn't just do it now to show where he is going to make his run but to tell the likes of Pogba and Martial who to pass it to in build ups.
Loving the football at the moment but having to watch this now is really hurting my eyes.
He doesn't just do it now to show where he is going to make his run but to tell the likes of Pogba and Martial who to pass it to in build ups.
Loving the football at the moment but having to watch this now is really hurting my eyes.
I swear by the end of this season, we'll have a 30min montage of his clumsiness
Lukaku was 11th for big chances missed last season. You could make longer compilations for 10 other players.
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This whole 'he was great last season' talk needs to stop. He scored less than Ibra did the year before and Ibra missed a bunch of sitters and got injured in March I think.
Absolutely spot on. I can only assume those defending him are related in some way. In 40 years of supporting United I've never seen a worse 'footballer' at the club that's given me laughs but for all the wrong reasons
Oh again with the stats are you actually watching the games at all? Did you watch any game in the last 6 months? He's such a limited player it's painful to watch at times.
Nice shifting of the goal posts.
I think he's a very good striker but with some obvious flaws. Definitely don't think he's anywhere near as bad as people in this thread make him out to be I mean we've had posters in here questioning if he should even be a professional footballer and if he should just give up and retire. Embarassing stuff. We're talking about a player who is the top goal scorer for his country and like I said he's scored 109 goals in the PL by 25 which is impressive.
I had to turn it off halfway through, it was pissing me off
He's a donkey, end of. Let's cut our losses this summer.
If I remember rightly he started the season off with a glut of about 10 goals in 8 games and then went about 12 games without a goal. To be fair that pretty much sums his time up at Manchester United so far, he has goal gluts and then goes missing for a few months.
The only difference now is we're actually allowing the likes of Pogba, Rashford and Martial to play the game they want to. Surely they will be setting more chances up during a game than they have been previously.
Hopefully his confidence is returning.
3 in 3 for Ole,I'll take that.
3 in 3 for Ole,I'll take that.
Obviously there’s some bonkers comments, it’s the Caf!!
He is a good striker in the whole scheme of things and with a very good record (for other clubs, at a lower standard), but he’s proved that he’s not good enough for us. His goal record is impressive, however, we need more than just goals against the bottom half teams against Utd. We need players who are capable of scoreing against the top sides, players who can make goals out of nothing, Lukuku is not that player, there is no magic about him and he adversary affects the rest of the team.
Lukaku recieved 22 "big chances" in the PL last season and scored 11 of them. Zlatan (despite being injured from March on as you say) recieved 23 "big chances" and scored 7 of them.
For further context Ibra was getting a chance every 21 minutes with a goal conversion rate of 14.8%, Lukaku receiving a chance every 38 minutes with a goal conversion rate of 18.6%.
In other words when we say Lukaku was good last season it's in the context of the rest of the team being shite at creating anything. If Ibra had been recieving as few chances as Lukaku did last season then he would have clearly scored a lot less too.
There are a ton of things to fairly criticise Lukaku for but his goalscoring isn't one of them, he does that very well. If you want to downplay hiw good he was last season then I'd stick to focusing on his general play.
Anybody who thinks Lukaku's football brain is poor is not in a position to judge footballing intelligence. They clearly don't have any themselves.
The two-stage run for the goal was extremely clever, for example, and it's not an isolated example.
It's only his race and his poor touch that lead to accusations of him being stupid. And neither of those things are relevant to the discussion.
The two-stage run for the goal was extremely clever, for example, and it's not an isolated example.
It's only his race and his poor touch that lead to accusations of him being stupid. And neither of those things are relevant to the discussion.
Scoring under Ole, I think to give him a chance until the end of a season.
Maybe he will reach 20 goals in EPL soon.
Maybe he will reach 20 goals in EPL soon.
His touch and poor hold up play are 100% relevant to the discussion on his performance.
The term football intelligence is itself a stupid one. People are primarily referring to ability on and off the ball, it has nothing to do with intelligence per se
Perhaps Ibra was part of the reason Ibra received more chances and Lukaku was part of the reason Lukaku didn't
Yep, could be, which is why I referred to his general play. Though the fact that Lukaku also recieved better and more frequent chances at Everton suggests that the team played a large role too.
Just because he makes a good run sometimes, doesn't mean he has a great footballing brain. Of course, he can pull off a V-run (as we say in Sweden) but I'm not impressed. One of his major flaws is how slow he is to react to loose balls, which says a lot about his footballing brain. Also, he can't pick up a great pass. Mainly because he hasn't the skill set to do that but also because he can't see those passes. How many times has he gotten a great pass but he are on his heels and are too slow to react?
Why would there be a Rashford gif in the Lukaku thread?
Yes, he can. 7 assists last season.
And if his technique is lacking, that means he can't execute his vision. Again, it's not evidence that he lacks a football brain. That's just an easy get-out clause for people to feel superior on the internet.
If his runs were so easy to replicate, every player would. Instead, Lukaku is one of the best in the coutry at it, and has been for years.
for those who would sell Lukaku where do you think his destination would be and for how much?
In Poch's version, Lukaku is the Llorente and Rashfrod is the Kane, a golden boy for Ole.
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He was good up until November or so. Firstly with all the goals he scored early on, and then he was playing well and regularly our best player for a while even while he wasn't scoring. After that he fell away quite badly though, which obviously then got far worse this season.
Ibra makes much better runs, which probably results in him being in more situations to get those 'big chances'. And then think about the goals Ibra made for himself like the outside the box shot vs Bournemouth away or Swansea. Lukaku simply doesn't bring this to the table.
It was a good run but its not 'extremely clever'. That is what forwards at all levels are taught to do for god sake.
I am actually questioning his intelligence to be honest. A player with his physical attributes should not be bullied as much as he does if he learned to use them intelligently.
Fair to him for getting this far in his career I guess.
Yes, in Lukaku's worst scoring season in years and Martial's best ever Martial has the same number as him. You do yourself a disservice by saying things like "Lukaku is a decent poacher", you are trying too hard to discredit him.
I hope Martial and Rashford do prove to be better goalscorers and go on to lead our attack for years as they are both brilliant to watch. As I already said though, there is nothing of substance to point to which would say either are as efficient goalscorers.
But very few have the football intelligence to execute it in a game environment as regularly as Lukaku.
In interviews with squad members, Lukaku is often named as one of the most intelligent at United.
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It's true though
If only they had footballing brains.
The thing that I find funny is that Lukaku gets so much stick when there are clearly much more pressing areas of our team that need addressing first. Once we have a functional right hand side to our team and a couple of centre halves who know how to do their job then we can worry about improving on our striker who in all likelihood will have scored 50 goals in his first two seasons here (whilst not taking pens).
You must be joking or trying to be a WUM. Lukaku may be intelligent off the field and I do not know his IQ but on the field he is piss poor most of the time. As others have said he is always on his back foot and to be honest I am surprised that he got the goal against Newcastle as normally he would have either been offside or on the back foot. Of course he is a decent player otherwise he would not be playing for Belgium. The same as Fellaini but honestly I would chose Fellaini over Lukaku because he brings something no other player can at United.
Yesterday there was once instant where he tried to control the ball and it popped up and hit him on his nose or somewhere there and he looked surprised and confused as to what was happening. I did not know where to laugh or to cry.
Control is a physical attribute, not a mental one.
Ah then he should be at home in a quiz competition. Not on a football pitch.
Strength has even less to do with intelligence.
So you think that the bigger you are the stronger you must be??
He also took his goal expertly, give the man credit when it is due.
That doesn't explain how Lukaku managed to get 25 big chances for Everton the year before coming here though, or why they created more chances generally that season than we did last year.
Either you blame the player for this discrepancy or the team. If it was the player's fault then upon arriving here he randomly became much worse at the aspects of football you mention, which seems unlikley. The alternative is that the team as a whole was struggling to create chances, something I think would correlate with most caf posters' general opinion of Mourinho's approach this season and last.
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