Romelu Lukaku

Would you buy Lukaku this summer?


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Jusef

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Not extending his loan leavers inter with at least 2 problems, which are:

1) Can Inter bring in a similar quality striker for same or less value(transfer fee consideration), which can have the same impact when healthy as Lukaku?

2) If Lukaku is Seria A bound, which it appears he is, can Inter afford to allow one of their rivals have him on loan?


Relevant to his debate is Dybala, the one which got away. Although Dybala was having a good season, his current Injury was not exactly unforeseeable.

And I think risking it on Lukaku over Dybala, considering his current injury, was in hindsight the right decision.
 

brehme1989

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Not extending his loan leavers inter with at least 2 problems, which are:

1) Can Inter bring in a similar quality striker for same or less value(transfer fee consideration), which can have the same impact when healthy as Lukaku?

Roberto Firmino. For less than half the amount since it can be a Bosman deal and salary won't be as high. Too early to say but he's a player we should be getting our paws at for next season if he wants out of Liverpool.

There's also Marcus Thuram who we wanted before.

Heck, if we have new owners I could even start dreaming about Messi again :lol:


But a combination of Firmino plus one of the two Thuram or Muriel would suffice for me. And that's pretty much what Lukaku costs and it sounds infinitely better.

2) If Lukaku is Seria A bound, which it appears he is, can Inter afford to allow one of their rivals have him on loan?

That's actually good news...

Relevant to his debate is Dybala, the one which got away. Although Dybala was having a good season, his current Injury was not exactly unforeseeable

And I think risking it on Lukaku over Dybala, considering his current injury, was in hindsight the right decision.

Dybala was a huge risk but he was definitely a safer option since we would have ended up with a permanent player who wants a leading role rather than someone who was looking for a quick rehab session. It's not like we didn't know all Lukaku cared about was the World Cup, the initial mediator for the deal was the freaking Belgian National Team!
 

Il Drago

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Brehme, i hadn't realised you rate Firmino so highly. I remember countless arguments with Wera over him. :D
 

brehme1989

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Brehme, i hadn't realised you rate Firmino so highly. I remember countless arguments with Wera over him. :D

I think you remember us talking about something different during the Liverpool games. I rated him since Hoffenheim actually and wanted him here, but I think he played mostly as attacking midfielder rather than false nine.
Also, I don't think Firmino would come here and light the place up, but as a 2nd/3rd option he'd be more than good enough.

Ideally, with not much cost, we can end up with something like:
Lautaro, Firmino, Thuram, Muriel as the four forwards and we get some Petagna clone (or himself) to be the fifth striker we throw in emergencies when we just want to spam crosses.


And this comes with the limitations of our budget.

Freeing ourselves from Lukaku's insane salary plus the fee (ignoring some bonuses that there are in place) we can afford both Muriel and Thuram.
Freeing ourselves from Dzeko's fat salary, we can offer Firmino a freaking raise...

It's not something unrealistic but it takes some luck and some wheeling & dealing from our end. The tough part is to get rid of Correa who is surplus here and whatever we save from him has to go to the midfield to upgrade Mkhtaryan and Gagliardini.


If I had a wishlist, Firmino would only be an option as a supersub.
 

ADRossi

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Hard no on Firmino. Thuram is the best choice once we're forced to go the Bosman route.
 

Il Drago

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Apologies then. Maybe i have mixed up the names and you were talking about someone else.
 

wera

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We won't have a chance to get Thuram. While Firmino might be an option, realisticaly speaking. Even if both come, I'd play Firmino in first team together with Lautaro, but only because he is better at creating chances than Correa/Džeko/Lukaku, not because I would believe he is still borderline world class... which he is not anymore, sadly.

Lautaro - Firmino - Džeko and one more creative player would be enough for next season. Obviously I wouldn't mind Thuram here as well, but I doubt he'd like to sit on the bench.

But if we have more money then sure, Firmino on the bench instead of Džeko would be great!

Edit: yeah, brehme always rated Firmino
 

Ethor

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Glad to see we're moving on from Lukaku. The only way to renew his loan is for him to have monster season in the final 28 matches, say close to 20 goals else back to London.
 

Fapuccino

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I think unless there's some miracle, it seems we're going to miss scudetto this season.

But I don't think I've ever seen the CL spots be so competitive. It's going to be a LONG season. We definitely need him back. Let's not get carried away by a few games. We're still in a shit position in the table.
 

NimAraya

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We won't have a chance to get Thuram. While Firmino might be an option, realisticaly speaking. Even if both come, I'd play Firmino in first team together with Lautaro, but only because he is better at creating chances than Correa/Džeko/Lukaku, not because I would believe he is still borderline world class... which he is not anymore, sadly.

Lautaro - Firmino - Džeko and one more creative player would be enough for next season. Obviously I wouldn't mind Thuram here as well, but I doubt he'd like to sit on the bench.

But if we have more money then sure, Firmino on the bench instead of Džeko would be great!

Edit: yeah, brehme always rated Firmino
Dzeko's contract expires at the end of this season. No need to extend it and Lukaku's anymore. Firminio and Thuram plus another back up forward would be good enough for the next season.
 

Universe

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Muriel :yao2:
 

CafeCordoba

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First significant injury since he's been with us and suddenly he's a mix between Sensi and Correa. Only on FIF.
Yeah, he's not a mix of those for sure. This long injury was way more out of the blue than anything else.

But indeed committing to Lukaku long-term would be enormous risk we would be taking. Not worth it at all, specially given his salary. Let his contract be Chelsea's problem, let's not intervene to that problem in any capacity.

In the summer he's at the wrong side of the age 30 and we shouldn't invest big amounts of money for such players at the current state of this club (and no, there won't be some saving sugar-daddy coming in who's gonna make our financial issues disappear).
 

CafeCordoba

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Btw let's shift the new forward discussion to maybe mercato team and strategies thread. Moved wera's latest post to there, go and check it!


Thank you!
 

Il Drago

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Can we stop talking about committing to Lukaku long term? Unless Chelsea give him a golden handshake this isn't an option with the current owners. The debate is whether it's worth to extend the loan for one more season or not. His second stint hasn't started well but we're still in October. Let's see how his season goes first before jumping to conclusions.
 
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