Romelu Lukaku

brehme1989 said:

When you're that big, strong and fast, this can still be effective at any level, except the top. Problem isn't effectiveness as much as efficiency. I don't think we ever had such an inefficient player up front, but it's good that we can keep coming up with more and more attacks.

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Mind you present some facts to support your oppinion?

ElDuccio said:

reading some comments from icardi fans here makes me really laugh. It's really stupid to criticize Lukaku after a Juve-Inter where Inter is already champion, with Lukaku scoring +20 goals and generelly being on of the best players in this team. But apparently "someone" would do better, right? incredibile

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What are you reading?

Kova10 said:

Mind you present some facts to support your oppinion?

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Facts? You think he's efficient? Please tell me how he's efficient in any way.

Neither him nor Lautaro are efficient. It's a very paradoxical duet that works because we spam them with possession in open space.


Palacio for example would probably be at the middle of the efficiency map. Other guys that weren't really efficient were Martins and Zamorano, but they weren't squandering chances like these two guys we have now do.

brehme1989 said:

Facts? You think he's efficient? Please tell me how he's efficient in any way.

Neither him nor Lautaro are efficient. It's a very paradoxical duet that works because we spam them with possession in open space.


Palacio for example would probably be at the middle of the efficiency map. Other guys that weren't really efficient were Martins and Zamorano, but they weren't squandering chances like these two guys we have now do.

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How are you determining efficiency?

Chance conversion wise, this guy is top 5 in Europe.

https://thefootballfaithful.com/players-best-shot-conversion-rate-in-europes-top-five-leagues/

Harpsabu said:

How are you determining efficiency?

Chance conversion wise, this guy is top 5 in Europe.

https://thefootballfaithful.com/players-best-shot-conversion-rate-in-europes-top-five-leagues/

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I'm not sure how they measure that, it seems odd since Lukaku shoots ~2.7 times per game in 35 games and has 23 goals in the league. [From whoscored]. That's 95 shots. 6 of which are penalties.

Gives us 89 shot attempts for 17 goals.
17/89 is a 19% conversion rate. You can check for yourself how many of his goals were tap ins or just simple touches, which makes it an easier goal to score for anyone, and that 19% rate doesn't really look very solid.


But still, the problem is not with the finishing, that's actually something he's quite good at obviously. He can finish, even if at times it is frustrating as you have to expect the GK to mess it up more than Lukaku to succeed given how often he shoots right at the GK.

The problem is with fumbling the ball during attacks, losing possession easily, misplacing passes or just refusing to take the shot as if he cares so much about such statistics when he's not confident he can get the goal! It feels sometimes that we have to try the same thing 3-4 times in order to get it right whenever Lukaku is involved. It will work one of those 3 or 4 times, but it becomes a problem when you can only have a go once or even twice. Against smaller teams it can happen more frequently, so effectiveness trumps efficiency, so people just don't care if it takes 5 times to do something right if you're gonna attempt it 15 times.


edit:
Just for comparison.
Luis Muriel: 20 non-PK goals. 35 appearances, 2.4 shots per game, which is 84 shot attempts, minus 3 PK attempts, that's 81.
20/81 = which is 24.7% conversion rate. Around half of his goals are rather difficult. That's without even going to the per minute stuff....

[youtube]wFM_qMnIKaY[/youtube]

ElDuccio said:

reading some comments from icardi fans here makes me really laugh. It's really stupid to criticize Lukaku after a Juve-Inter where Inter is already champion, with Lukaku scoring +20 goals and generelly being on of the best players in this team. But apparently "someone" would do better, right? incredibile

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Even Vlahovic has 20+ goals. No one is saying Kaku is bad, but he has weaknesses that Conte needs to address and hopefully will if we are to advance far in europe. Just like we've secured the scudetto but this team still has plenty of room for improvement.

I think that he is well involved in creating of chances and build up play despite not so good finishing. I mean, against Jube, he was involved in the own goal of Chiellini and the disallowed one of Lautaro. I don't know if someone counts his hockey assists and I'm sure that he has good numbers there as well. But he really sucks against deep defending team in most of the games.

brehme1989 said:

I'm not sure how they measure that, it seems odd since Lukaku shoots ~2.7 times per game in 35 games and has 23 goals in the league. [From whoscored]. That's 95 shots. 6 of which are penalties.

Gives us 89 shot attempts for 17 goals.
17/89 is a 19% conversion rate. You can check for yourself how many of his goals were tap ins or just simple touches, which makes it an easier goal to score for anyone, and that 19% rate doesn't really look very solid.

edit:
Just for comparison.
Luis Muriel: 20 non-PK goals. 35 appearances, 2.4 shots per game, which is 84 shot attempts, minus 3 PK attempts, that's 81.
20/81 = which is 24.7% conversion rate. Around half of his goals are rather difficult. That's without even going to the per minute stuff....

[youtube]wFM_qMnIKaY[/youtube]

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Interesting that you just wiped out the number for penalty kicks. Obviously that's because you think penalty is easy and anyone can score from penalty. While in fact the player you compare, Muriel, missed one penalty this season. He missed one out of three penalty, that's already like 33% miss from penalty kick. And that is surely not reflected in your calculation. Also, it is something to be appreciated that Lukaku managed to made 100% from 6 penalties (two times the number of Muriel).

Anyway 24% to 19% does not seem like a significant number. In fact, a striker must also be appreciated for his skills, positioning, and physicality to be able to make the shot. Its not like something given that a striker will always have a shot in a game. So having many shots is also to some extent an achievement.

Also, other posters gave a link that shows Lukaku is top 5 in europe for efficiency. I do not know which numbers are correct.

brehme1989 said:

But still, the problem is not with the finishing, that's actually something he's quite good at obviously. He can finish, even if at times it is frustrating as you have to expect the GK to mess it up more than Lukaku to succeed given how often he shoots right at the GK.

The problem is with fumbling the ball during attacks, losing possession easily, misplacing passes or just refusing to take the shot as if he cares so much about such statistics when he's not confident he can get the goal! It feels sometimes that we have to try the same thing 3-4 times in order to get it right whenever Lukaku is involved. It will work one of those 3 or 4 times, but it becomes a problem when you can only have a go once or even twice. Against smaller teams it can happen more frequently, so effectiveness trumps efficiency, so people just don't care if it takes 5 times to do something right if you're gonna attempt it 15 times.

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This is something I noticed too occasionally. I think it is about a player's nature or instinct. He is still looking for his teammates even when he is in the box with the ball. He is not a poacher-type who will only look for GK and the goal when he received the ball in the box. Every time he received the ball, he seems always find to make a pass, instead of look for the GK and the goal, even when he has the opportunity to make a slight move and then shot. That might be the instruction from Conte or could be just his nature. I agree he should be more confident (or selfish to some extent) especially when he play against small defenders which he can bully.

Thanks Wlext, anotha one to my spotify list while cruising through the city.

Lukaku cries a lot. The reason is that he made a promise to his grandfather before he passed away that he would win a title someday. And today Big Rom finally keeps it.

Hopefully his granddad on the sky is seeing this.

Romelone <3

Berardi has been involved in 45 goals since Lukaku came to Serie A. Hm hm, we should still look into him.

Nice that he got that 30 total goals in a season done. With a comical, true Lukaku-esque fashion.

I was just about to post that tweet from WilliamHill.

What an absolute animal man, if they somehow don't give Lukaku MVP I'm going to fucking riot.

If Conte leaves, I think Lukaku should be the main candidate to leave. Grateful for everything he’s done and he seems to like it here but with another coach I don’t think he’ll give as much. Also we can probably
Get huge money for him especially if he’s great at Euros. Not sure how it works with plusvenza though.

CoolMan44 said:

If Conte leaves, I think Lukaku should be the main candidate to leave. Grateful for everything he’s done and he seems to like it here but with another coach I don’t think he’ll give as much. Also we can probably
Get huge money for him especially if he’s great at Euros. Not sure how it works with plusvenza though.

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I love Rom but sadly agree. We should be prioritising keeping our younger players and he's up against lautaro.
Chelsea badly need a striker. If we could get 100m from Chelsea for Rom we have to take it.

I'd sell this guy asap. Build the squad around Martinez as I don't see him being as "efficient" without Conte.

CoolMan44 said:

If Conte leaves, I think Lukaku should be the main candidate to leave. Grateful for everything he’s done and he seems to like it here but with another coach I don’t think he’ll give as much. Also we can probably
Get huge money for him especially if he’s great at Euros. Not sure how it works with plusvenza though.

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Yeah, I feel like his form would dip the most with a new coach.

If we can offload Lukaku for something like 90mil, we still might come out of this okay. Provided we appoint a sensible coach and reinvest that money wisely in at least 2 new attacking players.