On 13/09/2021 at 10:53, petre ispirescu said:

Would love us to get two good results in the upcoming fixtures against Spurs and City, with Lukaku on the scoresheet in both matches. United fans were already a bad bunch, now with Ronaldo's arrival they have truly become unbearable, they are so salty in regards to Lukaku, the way they talk about him you would think he is the skinnier version of Akinfenwa.

It is written in the stars that Lukaku scores the winning goal in our penultimate match of the season at Old Trafford and we win the league in their stadium

On 14/09/2021 at 14:10, Jezz said:

Will be our best striker since Costa.

Signing Lukaku automatically makes us serious title contenders. Every title we've won in the PL era has come off the back of a strong and reliable striker (i.e. Drogba, Costa).

Very true but we also had others chip in with double figures like lampard and Anelka during the drogba era and Hazard during the Costa seasons

2 hours ago, The Don Antonio said:

Very true but we also had others chip in with double figures like lampard and Anelka during the drogba era and Hazard during the Costa seasons

Excellent point. None of our central mids will deliver that, unless Jorgi scorers 10 pens. All of that is on Havertz, Mount and the rest of the numbers 10s to deliver, they simply have to up their game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not hard to understand why he had some many assists for Inter last season.
Really should have had two or three yesterday alone.

No goals but still a huge impact on the game.

11 minutes ago, Sindre said:

Not hard to understand why he had some many assists for Inter last season.
Really should have had two or three yesterday alone.

No goals but still a huge impact on the game.

He is  undroppable right now. He had 0 assist, 0 goals, messed up some transition opportunities yet you can see the impact that he had on our offense.

When you have a player who is comfortable staying in the middle, football is so much easier for everyone 

Good to see he has developed a lot in that time with Conte. His back to goal play, first touch and link up play is much,much better. Now a complete CF.

First touch could use more work and he needs to be more selfish. 

All round play good. 

19 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Good to see he has developed a lot in that time with Conte. His back to goal play, first touch and link up play is much,much better. Now a complete CF.

Conte has improved his link up play big time but his touch is still horrible. 

He's got that aura of the elite striker, although he didn't score on the weekend, everytime he touched the ball cause problems to defenders. He's preserving his energy well in games, which I reckon it's crucial given he will play 50+ games this season

“Conte told me: ‘If you get good with your back to the goal, it’s over. Nobody can stop you.’ I remember he told me about it before the 2014 World Cup, just before he resigned from Juve, and then again when he was at Chelsea.

“At the time, Eden Hazard had acted as an intermediary, giving my number to Chelsea’s sporting director, Michael Emenalo. Emenalo himself called me and said: ‘Romelu, the coach who comes here wants you. Nobody else, only you.’

“A meeting was arranged in London, but I didn’t know who the new Chelsea manager was. Once I got to the appointment I saw that it was Conte. Looking back, it could only be him.”

He then spoke on working under Conte at Inter and what the first few months were like for him with the Nerazzurri club.

“In my first matches and three months here, I trained a lot to improve and advance my game. At each training session I was marked by Andrea Ranocchia and I would have to start the exercise from scratch if I failed.”

“I’ve improved with my back to goal thanks to a machine we use in training which fires balls at me at 30-40km/h, I have to direct them towards my teammates.

“Beforehand I was always a bit behind the defender marking me, now I’m two seconds ahead of them.

3 hours ago, mojo said:

“Conte told me: ‘If you get good with your back to the goal, it’s over. Nobody can stop you.’ I remember he told me about it before the 2014 World Cup, just before he resigned from Juve, and then again when he was at Chelsea.

“At the time, Eden Hazard had acted as an intermediary, giving my number to Chelsea’s sporting director, Michael Emenalo. Emenalo himself called me and said: ‘Romelu, the coach who comes here wants you. Nobody else, only you.’

“A meeting was arranged in London, but I didn’t know who the new Chelsea manager was. Once I got to the appointment I saw that it was Conte. Looking back, it could only be him.”

He then spoke on working under Conte at Inter and what the first few months were like for him with the Nerazzurri club.

“In my first matches and three months here, I trained a lot to improve and advance my game. At each training session I was marked by Andrea Ranocchia and I would have to start the exercise from scratch if I failed.”

“I’ve improved with my back to goal thanks to a machine we use in training which fires balls at me at 30-40km/h, I have to direct them towards my teammates.

“Beforehand I was always a bit behind the defender marking me, now I’m two seconds ahead of them.

Reading quotes like that makes his choice to join Manchester United really strange. 

We were his boyhood club, we had a coach who clearly wanted and admired him. 

Did the move really not happen purely because we wouldn't pay the agent fees? 

No idea how we messed up that 2017 transfer window so badly. 

1 minute ago, ForeverCarefree said:

Reading quotes like that makes his choice to join Manchester United really strange. 

We were his boyhood club, we had a coach who clearly wanted and admired him. 

Did the move really not happen purely because we wouldn't pay the agent fees? 

No idea how we messed up that 2017 transfer window so badly. 

It's the agent mate, they get in the player's head. They brocker deals that make the most money for them and I suppose their client (to an extent) everything else comes secondary. 

Definitely doesn't make sense when you look back on the situation has to go down as a failure from the board to an extent since we had from January to really sort the deal since Costa was pushing to leave from then.

Alvaro was a wildcard whereas, Rom was prem proven it was such a bad choice. It all worked out for the best in the end we won some titles without him and now he's back home helping us to win some more.

Indeed it was all Rinoa who we upset in the dealing by not meeting his fee. Rom then used him to get out of his United hell and promptly dumped him.

Also hopefully Rom shatters the claim he does not show in big matches by winning us the game tomorrow.

8 hours ago, ForeverCarefree said:

Reading quotes like that makes his choice to join Manchester United really strange. 

We were his boyhood club, we had a coach who clearly wanted and admired him. 

Did the move really not happen purely because we wouldn't pay the agent fees? 

No idea how we messed up that 2017 transfer window so badly. 

It had to be more than Raiola's fee. Lukaku realised what a lowlife and scumbag of a man he has for his agent so next thing he dumps him. Who dumps the most succsecsful agent?

 

I wish he burns down manure when we play them.

Edited September 25, 20214 yr by mojo

Very poor again.

His first touch is that of a brick wall.

He didn't get any service because we literally never had the ball, but when it did come to him, he failed to control it miserably.

4/10

29 minutes ago, coco said:

Very poor again.

His first touch is that of a brick wall.

He didn't get any service because we literally never had the ball, but when it did come to him, he failed to control it miserably.

4/10

Not enough on his own to make up that difference between us and City in points last season. 

Think today was the cold water for both us and United that, over 38 games, we are just not up to Cities standard yet.

40 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

we are just not up to Cities standard yet.

But that shouldn't stop us from beating every other team in the league.

1 minute ago, coco said:

But that shouldn't stop us from beating every other team in the league.

That depends on us and our mentality. More specifically how we recover from playing cowardly and in fear today. 

Unfortunately we have seen that while City can bounce back and win 15 on the Trott, we can take a confidence hit and be mired in it for long period. Usually referred to as our winter wobble which can start anytime from October onwards.

Only have to go back to last year, beautiful football, confident, goals flowing, top of the pile, lovely win against Leeds. Chilwell speaks of the groups confidence and what happens? Abysmal run, few months later Frank is chopped and the merry-go-round goes again.

His performances in big games has been one of his biggest criticisms and he showed that again today.  Granted, the midfield didn't help matters but he could have done better with a number of situations. He had a good chance from an Azpilicueta cross but got bullied by Dias and didn't even challenge for the header.  For such a big man, he is quite poor in the air when challenged

We knew he wasn't a big game player and we knew his limitations when we signed him. As long as he bullies small teams and gives us 20-25 goals a season, he'll be worth the money we spent on him.

The funny thing is, we did much better in the past against City when playing without a striker.

Edited September 25, 20214 yr by abramovich

It's not surprising, we have known for years that he is a flat track bully.

I would actually be okay with it if Tuchel could see it and would change something in these big games. We did fine in these games without Lukaku last season, it was the smaller teams we struggled against, and that is the teams Lukaku loves playing against.

He needs a partner in attack. Werner, Havertz, Pulisic... Anyone that can take on a player?

If we struggle to score I would even suggest to play a 4-4-2 and counter attack teams with Lukaku+Werner or Havertz behind Lukaku...

1 hour ago, Scott Harris said:

It's not surprising, we have known for years that he is a flat track bully.

I would actually be okay with it if Tuchel could see it and would change something in these big games. We did fine in these games without Lukaku last season, it was the smaller teams we struggled against, and that is the teams Lukaku loves playing against.

Maybe we should just leave him out of the return games against Pool, City and the United double header.