1 minute ago, mwblue10 said:

 

Last season, it was always “good performance, but no end product” with the team. Now it’s “yeah 2 goals, but still not a great performance.”

It was 2 goals FFS. Literally the aim of the game. Makes me wonder if opinions are based on football or if they’re made based on an interview that was given months ago. Would you prefer he doesn’t score and we lose?

I would prefer if he played well most weeks and could do something as basic as control a football. It's 2 goals against Wolves, 2 out of 7 in 24 league appearances. What kind of reaction do you expect? I'm not suddenly going to forget everything I have seen from Lukaku for the past 10 years. There is nothing left to learn, he won't get any better from here, this is his peak and it's still not good enough.

 

Rom is a simple creature. If you give him the type of service he likes he will deliver goals most of the time.

However if you dont the vast majority of the time he becomes invisible. The club should know this, TT should know this.

If you pick Rom give instructions to look for his runs and play early passes in to those runs. If you have someone like Timo with him, along with CP, you won't get that enough as CP is a ball hog and Timo is the German Jesper Gronkjaer.

4 minutes ago, mwblue10 said:

Makes me wonder if opinions are based on football or if they’re made based on an interview that was given months ago. Would you prefer he doesn’t score and we lose?

That line may work if a) i rated him before the interview and b) this was his first 'rebellious' case. We're talking about a guy who leaked confidential fitness records at United and let's not forget how he left us the first time (buggered off to train with Anderlecht until we granted the move, a trick he repeated at United).

He's a record signing who rates himself as highly as Benzema and wants/gives himself the type of excemptions that Eden Hazard got.

So yes I will be holding him to those type of standards. If this time next year we're looking at the figures and seeing multiple MOTM performances, goals against City, Liverpool and clutch goals/contributions in the title race then we'll talk.

10 minutes ago, mwblue10 said:

Last season, it was always “good performance, but no end product” with the team. Now it’s “yeah 2 goals, but still not a great performance.”

Yep and i repeatedly said last summer if there's no decent stylistical option I'd rather wait and take the short term hit until someone came along.

That's unfortuently the difference between us and Liverpool, they identified an ideal stylistic fit (who would have suited us very well if we held our nerve and waited) while we just looked at the top line and thought it would all fall into place (or naively thought we could adapt him).

I didn't want him then either but I understood the logic in 2017. In this team in made no sense, not only stylistically but if we really wanted to go down the route of a 'safe' goal tally who didn't really offer a huge deal else there was someone a lot better in that very same league we could have got (I doubt United would have panic hijacked us the way they did City).

Just now, axman2526 said:

Rom is a simple creature. If you give him the type of service he likes he will deliver goals most of the time.

However if you dont the vast majority of the time he becomes invisible. The club should know this, TT should know this.

If you pick Rom give instructions to look for his runs and play early passes in to those runs. If you have someone like Timo with him, along with CP, you won't get that enough as CP is a ball hog and Timo is the German Jesper Gronkjaer.

That's the thing though, Lukaku has had plenty of service. It's not consistent, but there has been plenty of times where he has been put in and he slips on his ass when he takes a shot. Or how about when we get it out wide and Lukaku hides behind a defender instead of trying to get in front of them? Then there are times where he gets a perfect cross only to miss the shot completely because his reaction times are so slow. I just don't see why it's everybody else that needs to improve their game for Lukaku when Lukaku himself can't be relied on to improve his game for everybody else. 

Look at somebody like Harry Kane. When Mourinho went to Tottenham, Kane's game went through big changes and now under Conte, he's one of the best link up players around. He's not just this lethal striker anymore, he has added so much more to his game. Lukaku has done f**k all to improve his game, it's still on everybody else to make him look good. 

1 hour ago, Scott Harris said:

That's the thing though, Lukaku has had plenty of service. It's not consistent, but there has been plenty of times where he has been put in and he slips on his ass when he takes a shot. Or how about when we get it out wide and Lukaku hides behind a defender instead of trying to get in front of them? Then there are times where he gets a perfect cross only to miss the shot completely because his reaction times are so slow. I just don't see why it's everybody else that needs to improve their game for Lukaku when Lukaku himself can't be relied on to improve his game for everybody else. 

Look at somebody like Harry Kane. When Mourinho went to Tottenham, Kane's game went through big changes and now under Conte, he's one of the best link up players around. He's not just this lethal striker anymore, he has added so much more to his game. Lukaku has done f**k all to improve his game, it's still on everybody else to make him look good. 

Agreed Scott. Why many of us did not want him to come back as he has been exactly what we expected of him.

He has not made enough real effort to adapt to the team, and honestly I think most of the team don't like him being here, especially after the interview.

Cause really we should have an amazing front 3, at least on paper. What TT began using at Anfield, Mase and Kai in their best positions, advanced 10s, and Lukaku as the  if bully of the front line. 

He should make space for those two to pocket goals and assists galore, and they have the technique to give him precise passes that should have seen him notch 25 goals this season.

Unfortunately has not worked like that. Rom has been the wet blanket we expected and Kai has had.a frankly poor year overall. 

Only Mase of our forwards have delivered good numbers. The rest as individuals and a team have been very poor.

12 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Agreed Scott. Why many of us did not want him to come back as he has been exactly what we expected of him.

He has not made enough real effort to adapt to the team, and honestly I think most of the team don't like him being here, especially after the interview.

Cause really we should have an amazing front 3, at least on paper. What TT began using at Anfield, Mase and Kai in their best positions, advanced 10s, and Lukaku as the  if bully of the front line. 

He should make space for those two to pocket goals and assists galore, and they have the technique to give him precise passes that should have seen him notch 25 goals this season.

Unfortunately has not worked like that. Rom has been the wet blanket we expected and Kai has had.a frankly poor year overall. 

Only Mase of our forwards have delivered good numbers. The rest as individuals and a team have been very poor.

Rom has been a poor signing, but he has still managed a goal approximately every 180 minutes (or 2 games of playing time). That despite all of the obvious issues with him in this system. He is also supposedly quite well liked by the other players. If there was a way to better integrate him he is still our most natural striker, even if unpopular with most of us.

19 minutes ago, forbzy said:

 If there was a way to better integrate him he is still our most natural striker, even if unpopular with most of us.

There isn't unless we dumb down our system by reverting back to counter attacking football. There is a reason why this type of football isn't sustainable at the top level. 

He doesn't want to be here as an impact player so he should leave. 

57 minutes ago, forbzy said:

Rom has been a poor signing, but he has still managed a goal approximately every 180 minutes (or 2 games of playing time). That despite all of the obvious issues with him in this system. He is also supposedly quite well liked by the other players. If there was a way to better integrate him he is still our most natural striker, even if unpopular with most of us.

That would require sacking TT and getting Conte back imo.

9 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

That would require sacking TT and getting Conte back imo.

Quite probably would require a different manager to work, I agree. That being said we should also prepare for the possibility that he doesn't leave this summer in which case we would need to use him.

Erling Haaland about to go to City for 63m according to BBC Sport

 

We could've just kept Tammy and waited a year 

34 minutes ago, Drogba1 said:

Erling Haaland about to go to City for 63m according to BBC Sport

 

We could've just kept Tammy and waited a year 

If we had a genuine chance of Haaland coming here, it would have happened last year. The most realistic scenario is that he made it very clear he had eyes on Manchester or Real.

15 hours ago, forbzy said:

Rom has been a poor signing, but he has still managed a goal approximately every 180 minutes (or 2 games of playing time). That despite all of the obvious issues with him in this system. He is also supposedly quite well liked by the other players. If there was a way to better integrate him he is still our most natural striker, even if unpopular with most of us.

Just play him early ball. If you re-watch our game vs wolves you can see how the only one who try to find him was kova but we need him to run more defensively.

15 hours ago, Sconnie Blue said:

There isn't unless we dumb down our system by reverting back to counter attacking football. There is a reason why this type of football isn't sustainable at the top level. 

He doesn't want to be here as an impact player so he should leave. 

Nah football is not that black n white. 

As long as he scores goals he’s doing his role for us as the target man. The problem is that he hasn’t done that enough this season.

27 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

As long as he scores goals he’s doing his role for us as the target man. The problem is that he hasn’t done that enough this season.

Correct Gol, with a caveat that Chelsea win matches. 

Surely we don’t have to change our style to suit him…but can we not just get the ball into him quicker? 

12 minutes ago, JM7 said:

Surely we don’t have to change our style to suit him…but can we not just get the ball into him quicker? 

Not sure what Pulisic was thinking on Saturday…normally he would have tried to dribble around the defenders,headed for the corner passed it back to Alonso who would in turn recycled it via Rudi, Thiago ,Azpi and Reece, leaving Rom shaking his head. 
Just showed what an inspired substitution Tuchel made taking Alonso off and breaking the cycle.

On 10/05/2022 at 08:13, Gol15 said:

As long as he scores goals he’s doing his role for us as the target man. The problem is that he hasn’t done that enough this season.

Given his price tag, how highly he thinks of himself and the fact he wants/gives himself a Hazard esque workrate exception then I expect substance on the level his fellow countryman gave us.

Producing the goods in the FA Cup final like he did will be a start.

Edited May 11, 20224 yr by Argo

Much like the league cup final, we should bring him on later to provide a different element. 

Tried his hardest to f**k up a simple tap in. Very lucky to get the goal.

Overall a good performance, much more mobile, much more movement, finding space, not being a one trick predictable pony. Elephant touch but ice cold finish regardless. Part of me thinks he's auditioning for a summer transfer but I'll take this form going into the final.

He did ok tonight, involved from the start. Made a nuisance of himself and generally was a goal threat. 

Question is does TT start the 3 goals in 2 games Rom or his first choice but woefully out of form Kai up top?

15 goals for the season now ... imagine if he loses a few kg and goes into full beast mode next year ... we might actually have ourselves a player !

I think he is probably worth persevering with ... and he certainly looks like he's trying hard to impress the new owners ?

4 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

Question is does TT start the 3 goals in 2 games Rom or his first choice but woefully out of form Kai up top?

Or come up with a formation that means he can start both of them ?

A 3-5-2 perhaps ? Pulisic the odd man out ... with Mount as the advanced midfielder ahead of Jorginho and probably Kante (if fit) ?