5 minutes ago, Hall said:

With every strikers you would have the same problem in this system. Chill, James both injured and the wingers are Ziyech, Odoi and Pulisic. Your best player mount is out of shape. Your backline have to many injury so the team is changing all the time. So only balls will be coming from Kovacic. Tuchel don’t want to change the system even half of the importent players a missing or out of form to play his 343.

 

So many excuses for one player it's unbelievable.

What really hurts is we make all this money from developing and selling our academy players, and we burn the money in one transfer on this idiot. Makes the blood boil.

10 minutes ago, abramovich said:

Every striker doesn't have the same weaknesses Lukaku's got. Most strikers at that level are much better equipped technically,more versatile, have much more to their game  and can create goals on their own even if service is lacking, which is what Tuchel quite bluntly stated in his post match interview. Lukaku's limitations as a player makes the team predictable and easy to defend against, that's why his record vs top sides is abysmal and so will be our team record in these type of matches with him leading our attack.

Our version of Samuel Eto'o (who many people on the forum I was in at the time argued a young Rom's case favourably against) didn't get pristine service yet got a hatrick against United alongside winners against Spurs, Arsenal and Liverpool. Apart from the second against United none of his goals (for us full stop not just in those game) were served to him on a plate his quality or anticipation is what got him there. His goals against Schalke and West Bromwich forcing keeper mistakes, you don't need service for that, if you work hard and press eventually a player will f**k up and give you a present.

Absolutely infuriating the excuses being made for this guy. We had a 3 times UCL winner come here and work his bollocks off yet we can't ask the same from Lukaku.

Edited January 16, 20224 yr by Argo

13 minutes ago, Argo said:

Can they control a ball properly? Do they have an ego well above their ability level?

If the answers are yes and no respectively then that's an upgrade, anything else can be worried about later.

So you would be happy with a striker that doesn’t score but say YES to  everything but can control the ball and have no ego.

hmmmm wait a minute we have that already WERNER and people are still compaining him missing chances.

2 minutes ago, Hall said:

So you would be happy with a striker that doesn’t score but say YES to  everything but can control the ball and have no ego.

hmmmm wait a minute we have that already WERNER and people are still compaining him missing chances.

It's actually insane and unbelievably sad that fans of a club that enjoyed Gudjohnsen, Drogba and Hazard look at football through stat padding.

1 minute ago, coco said:

What really hurts is we make all this money from developing and selling our academy players, and we burn the money in one transfer on this idiot. Makes the blood boil.

Honestly, I still cannot figure out who decided RL was the answer to our problems. Was Tuchel in favour of that move? I remember him saying in one of his  press conferences that Halland deal was financially unfeasible or something like that. It seems we were so desperate to land the big name striker we just went down the list of options and ended up with Lukaku.

18 minutes ago, abramovich said:

Honestly, I still cannot figure out who decided RL was the answer to our problems. Was Tuchel in favour of that move? I remember him saying in one of his  press conferences that Halland deal was financially unfeasible or something like that. It seems we were so desperate to land the big name striker we just went down the list of options and ended up with Lukaku.

If I recall correctly we could not buy anyone of quality, Broja was just starting to show signs of promise and Havertz hadn't really nailed his false 9 position.

Haaland had been ruled out and so by a process of elimination a Conte improved Lukaku looked like the only option.

Wouldn't be surprised if he only lasts one season with us. 

It's been a bitty season for him but if it carries on this way I can only see us selling him at the end of the season.

I want to see TT utilise a 433 system more as well, without Chilwell or James it just doesn't work.

3 minutes ago, strider6004 said:

Wouldn't be surprised if he only lasts one season with us. 

Hopefully that will be the case.

Everybody see that this system of 343 not working with players missing due to injuries why don’t adapt more to 433 where we pull mount back to help with kovacic. With or without Lukaku this doesn’t work without Chillwell and James.So why don’t just start by dropping playerd like Ziyech, Cho and Pulisic and play with Werner , Lukaku and Kai. Wingers that can’t take on their man and can’t make decent cross. 3 attackers will have more chances of scoring.

that is our main problem not the Kai or Lukaku.

His stats vs City: passing rate 58%, conceded possession 10 (!) times, aerial duels 0/7. f**king hell.

23 minutes ago, abramovich said:

His stats vs City: passing rate 58%, conceded possession 10 (!) times, aerial duels 0/7. f**king hell.

Can't wait for the mental gymnastics that makes this everyone else's fault.

53 minutes ago, abramovich said:

His stats vs City: passing rate 58%, conceded possession 10 (!) times, aerial duels 0/7. f**king hell.

I would have guessed close to these stats and it’s  abysmal. But let’s blame Kante and Kovacic. 

Romelu Lukaku registered just 21 touches of the ball – every City player registered at least twice as many, including front three Jack Grealish (50), Phil Foden (50) and Raheem Sterling (44).

1 hour ago, abramovich said:

His stats vs City: passing rate 58%, conceded possession 10 (!) times, aerial duels 0/7. f**king hell.

Is there any stats around for the rest of the team? I usually just find those for particular players when a particularly good or bad game has been had

Give him a bit of slack , he hasn't even played that much this season , let's see how he stands after a full  season with us.

I feel he is so desperate to score that he's cocking everything up. 

Havertz was awful initially, I honestly thought we had bought a dud, but he came good eventually.

Doesn't mean Rom will come good, I know,  but I live in hope . 

and do we play to his strengths ? Er, what ARE his strengths ?

7 minutes ago, The Rising Sun said:

and do we play to his strengths ? Er, what ARE his strengths ?

He knows a bajillion languages

3 minutes ago, The Rising Sun said:

Give him a bit of slack , he hasn't even played that much this season , let's see how he stands after a full  season with us.

That would be fine if a) we were basing our assessments on 6 months and not the best part of a decade and b) the issues were "only" with his performances.

6 minutes ago, The Rising Sun said:

 

and do we play to his strengths ? Er, what ARE his strengths ?

Accelerating into open space and finishing. To get the very best out of him would require us to ditch what we've been building towards since Sarri and set up like a modern Rafa's Liverpool gearing up everything towards Torres.

7 minutes ago, The Rising Sun said:

Give him a bit of slack , he hasn't even played that much this season , let's see how he stands after a full  season with us.

I feel he is so desperate to score that he's cocking everything up. 

Havertz was awful initially, I honestly thought we had bought a dud, but he came good eventually.

Doesn't mean Rom will come good, I know,  but I live in hope . 

and do we play to his strengths ? Er, what ARE his strengths ?

Can do interviews in 8 languages 

2 minutes ago, Argo said:

That would be fine if a) we were basing our assessments on 6 months and not the best part of a decade and b) the issues were "only" with his performances.

Accelerating into open space and finishing. To get the very best out of him would require us to ditch what we've been building towards since Sarri and set up like a modern Rafa's Liverpool gearing up everything towards Torres.

Well, Rafa just got sacked and is available 😉

2 minutes ago, Argo said:

That would be fine if a) we were basing our assessments on 6 months and not the best part of a decade and b) the issues were "only" with his performances.

Accelerating into open space and finishing. To get the very best out of him would require us to ditch what we've been building towards since Sarri and set up like a modern Rafa's Liverpool gearing up everything towards Torres.

True... Same with Werner, nicknamed "turbo" because of his pace, we saw it worked early on, he's even given up pointing into space for his run. He knows it'll be a few minutes before we pick him up, surrounded by defenders.

And I agree about Sarri ball, the team seem to always revert to it , it's infected the club !

15 minutes ago, The Rising Sun said:

Give him a bit of slack , he hasn't even played that much this season , let's see how he stands after a full  season with us.

You'd think that but he's actually racked up 22 games totaling 1400minutes. 

3 minutes ago, Amputechture said:

Well, Rafa just got sacked and is available 😉

His destiny will be to take Spuds down after Conte walks. They like our cast offs

Just now, Deino said:

You'd think that but he's actually racked up 22 games totaling 1400minutes. 

Has he really ? I'm surprised it's that many.  Jesus

2 minutes ago, The Rising Sun said:

Has he really ? I'm surprised it's that many.  Jesus

You can take about 8 of them being subbed on/off but other than that he generally plays at least 75mins of the game.