Three different clubs have spent £75m, £70m and £98m on him. Just mind blowing.
Romelu Lukaku | Chelsea
- Thread starter RDCR07
- Start date
Exactly, he's no Benzema or Lewa but he isn't that bad as some people think.
I mean he scored goals everywhere he went and he has a combination of unique qualities: speed, power, heading and finishing. He can certainly do better into a different system that would suit him, Tuchel is trying hard to make him look bad. Even this season he scored once in 3 games, which is his worst year for a long time.
We paid 80m for Harry we could have bought Lukaku all these 3 times and I wouldn't be surprised.
Of course, because he it doesn't show at the moment doesn't mean its not the case.
There are underlying reasons which isn't his fault.
ManUtd signed him after he had his best seasons -> Ended up as mixed bag and last season was hilariously bad.
Inter signed him after his (probably) worst ever season -> They had brilliant success with him in their team.
Chelsea signed him after his best career seasons --> like ManUtd second season, they got poor player.
So trick is to sign him after his shit season.
I love laughing at Big Rom as much as the next guy, but I will admit that I thought he would be a success at Chelsea. What they seemed to lacking last year was someone to get the goals against the smaller team and Lukaku has always done that well. I thought he would comfortably get 15 league goals and 25 in total.
In a joyless season, it is a small bright spot to see him pointing and moaning after bigging himself up as the next R9.
In a joyless season, it is a small bright spot to see him pointing and moaning after bigging himself up as the next R9.
Yeah think his physique doesn't suit his actual abilities, gives the impression that he should be playing as a target man trapping the ball and being strong, where as that's prob his weakest attributes.
Defo the sort of striker you would never buy to build your team around if you have serious plans to win major prizes. He's just so limited and frustrating as a player. His control is so poor, zero link up ability too, it's mental the amount of transfer money he has went for over his career must be a world record for total fees
The finishing is massively over cooked with him, either people see the goals scored and think top finisher and haven't actually watched the sort of chances he misses game to game
I think the key underlying reason is that he's nowhere close to being as talented as the most talented players in the league.
His record in Serie A and Everton and the Belgium national team suggest otherwise.
You don't see the movement, the finish, the hand pointing!!
His record at Everton, ManUtd, Inter is almost same. Only difference is he took penalties at Inter.
| Mins | Goals | Assists | Penalties | NP goals | Mins per NP goal | Mins per NPG +A | |
| Everton | 11880 | 68 | 26 | 4 | 64 | 186 | 132 |
| ManUtd | 4999 | 28 | 8 | 0 | 28 | 179 | 139 |
| West Brom | 2002 | 17 | 7 | 2 | 15 | 133 | 91 |
| Chelsea | 1491 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 298 | 213 |
| Inter | 5871 | 47 | 12 | 12 | 35 | 168 | 125 |
IIRC his record wasn't even the best in Serie A, Immobile, Luis Muriel, Duvan Zapata had better record (might be wrong, have to check it again).
Overall he was good for Inter, no doubt about it. But all the talk of "new Lukaku" was always hilarious.
This is an example of everyone watching highlight clips of players.
Lukaku in Serie A scored alot of goals but he still had the same issues as he did at United with ball control and missing chances.
Chelsea fans saw his goal scoring clips and thought, yep he is the man but Lukaku works very well for a counter attacking set up. West Brom, Everton, Manutd under Jose, Conte are all defensive teams where he had space to run into.
Chelsea are a possession based team, he lacks the ball control and intricate play.
Lukaku in Serie A scored alot of goals but he still had the same issues as he did at United with ball control and missing chances.
Chelsea fans saw his goal scoring clips and thought, yep he is the man but Lukaku works very well for a counter attacking set up. West Brom, Everton, Manutd under Jose, Conte are all defensive teams where he had space to run into.
Chelsea are a possession based team, he lacks the ball control and intricate play.
You brought out the stats
You should know a troll when you see one
Sorry for that.
In my defense, i have seen people making genuine arguments with same points and compared him with Lewa, Benzema and Kane.
Just remembered the hype he received from various pundits after the Arsenal fixture earlier in the campaign.
Leave First touch God alone
Reinvented himself in Italy. Student of the game. Bahahaha
He is a system striker, not one you can ask for deciding elite games by himself, simply because neither his skillset nor his attitude are elite level. As such, whenever the system is sh*t or unsuited, he is sh*t as well. Very similar to Immobile, if you like. No elite club can afford to build a system around a non-elite striker and that’s it, however deluded he is.
Yeah I remember that stretch actually - think that also coincided with him playing on the right semi-regularly for Belgium if I recall correctly? Tuchel tried something similar playing him as an inside right in our 3-4-2-1 a couple of times - the problem is he doesn't press at all and that caused us problems when defending. Mount is far more effective in that position both on and off the ball for the way Tuchel wants to play.
Yeah even in a non-pressing Jose team where attackers were expected to do a lot of defensive work, Lukaku did sod all. Which made Jose's supposed love for him all the stranger. I can't help feeling that he loved what he thought Lukaku ought to be, rather than what he actually is. That would explain his bizarre attempt to turn him into a Drogba-like target man in his (Jose's) ill-fated third season.
The lack of press or really the lack of any involvement on and off the ball was very clearly harming the team and that would have been the case whether he ended up being a 25 goals guy for us or the version we have now. The best version of this team is built on energy, intensity, high press etc and Lukaku not only contributes to none of those things, he was actively reducing the levels of them with his presence.
The only thing that could have kept him in the team was banging the goals in and even then I would have advocated for benching him because he's making the players around him worse and he makes the team very pedestrian and one dimensional, but at least in that scenario he could say he has done what he was brought here to do.
In a perverse way it's probably better he's flopped like this instead of scoring but holding us back systematically.
If he was scoring 20 plus goals he'll play every minute of every game no matter how much he was holding us back systematically.
Unfortunately, that ship has sailed no conte there any more to huddle up all united rejected.
Maybe we could give a few to spurs though...
Jesus those numbers are very damning.
Didn't think its that bad thought I feel our perception are kinda screwed by the insane numbers Ronnie and messi put out year in year out.
Even then though it's obviously much inferior to the likes of lewy , Suarez, Benzema, kane etc etc so very hilarious when he put himself among those as the best strikers in the world.
Yeah it could be viewed as a blessing in disguise.
He was a bad fit for the system. He has skills and definitely has deficits. I wish him luck at his next team.
Tbf the silver lining for you guys is you are exceptional at magicking up buyers for your unwanted players, so while you will make a loss on him at least it won’t be anywhere near the debacle we currently have with our Lukaku of defenders.
very true!Yeah christ the way people big up his finishing you'd think he was Van Persie in his prime. Lukaku has pulled an unbelievable Houdini act convincing the world he's a top striker for years now when in reality he's in a similar tier to Immobile. He's not really a target man as his hold up play is generally bad, but he's also not a playmaking forward that can play out wide either. Basically he's a striker that firmly fits into a certain level and is good there, but any level above his and he'll look out of place and be a detriment to his team.
He didn't score that much more in Serie A, penalty excluded, but he provided a lot more assists than what he do for Chelsea.
Looks like that secret dietary issue that Inter found and solved has come back. Weird.
His finishing is shocking game to game. Why it's insane it brought up a quality he has.
I keep thinking back to Chelsea arsenal game start of season the way Neville was talking about him after it scored a tap in, not get a easily good, he was getting on like was real quality to it, my mind was blown
Jose is certainly nothing if not hard-headed - and given his struggles to relate to modern players plus what we know about Lukaku, that mix in retrospect is especially disastrous.
The priority has to be a wide forward who can score - would love Ousmane Dembele personally.
He's definitely been my favourite transfer of the season.
Agree. It can be truly awful. Not the quality of a world class striker at all
And what did those players do at their clubs? Both Chiellini and Bonucci have been in decline for years now, Chiesa just came on the scene 2 years ago. Jorginho has been good at Chelsea while Veratti is the Italian Pogba enjoying his 10 year vacation in Paris.
I was just thinking this. He really just needs to be in a team where he can counter attack and use his speed and strength.
Lukaku's best season at Inter had moments like these
I always wonder how outdated punditry and basic analysts are when they talk about how great a finisher someone is just because they have a good goal tally. If you're scoring nothing but tap ins I don't consider you a great finisher, although you might be excellent finding space in the box.
To me finishing is more about the range of ways someone can score chances along with their general precision. Ole as a player is a great example of an elite finisher as he could go either foot to any corner and be precise with it.