Are we being too harsh?
It was all guns blazing for Manchester United at the start of the season. Paul Pogba was playing great, so too was Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Romelu Lukaku was fitting in nicely.
Three games in and Manchester United were sitting nicely at the top of the table with nine points, 10 goals scored and none conceded. What could go wrong?
It has been a mixed bag since then though, some of the low points include:
- 2-2 vs Stoke
- 2-1 loss to Huddersfield
- 1-0 loss to Chelsea
But it has not been all doom and gloom, United are still second in the Premier League and there have been plenty highlights too:
- 1-0 vs Tottenham
- 4-0 vs Crystal Palace
- 4-0 vs Everton
And that’s just to name a few but there is one lingering question that has been asked while things haven’t been plain sailing, is Romelu Lukaku good enough in the big games?
You reap what you sow https://t.co/suQwYoyRtz
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) November 22, 2017
If you haven’t been watching Manchester United you’d wonder what all the fuss is about, at £75m it seems like Lukaku has been doing just fine to justify the price tag with eight Premier League goals, just one off the top scorer spot and then you look at his recent form.
Up until 10 October, the former Everton striker was in the form of his life after scoring 16 goals in 13 games between club and country.
(Image via: Soccerbase)
Then you look at the next nine games and the 24-year-old has only scored once.
(Image via: Soccerbase)
For Lukaku, perhaps his poor form has come at the worst possible time for him individually with the return of Zlatan Ibrahimovic. For all of Manchester United’s shortcomings, one of their saving graces last year was Ibrahimovic and after his return from injury, you could imagine the Swede doesn’t want to be playing second fiddle even if he is nearing the end of his career.
After Manchester United’s 1-0 defeat at the hands of Basel in the Champions League the inevitable question was asked, Zlatan or Lukaku?
Richie Sadlier was on RTÉ and gave his take on the loss:
“Poor finishing in the first half is what cost them and then the change was defence minded in the second half and that caught up with them as well,” Sadlier said.
When Ibrahimovic returned to on-field action against Newcastle at the weekend he immediately instructed Lukaku to push out to the wing as he went central:
“That was interesting,” the pundit told Darragh Moloney “Maybe Zlatan was just relaying an instruction from the manager that Zlatan went central, Lukaku went out and we’re all picking it up that it’s this kind of power play from Zlatan.
“Lukaku’s going to have to deal with that because he’s at a club now and he’s under the kind of scrutiny he hasn’t been before, in his career. You don’t get this at Everton, for example and he has a fit Zlatan now vying for the same position.
“I don’t believe there is room for both of them in the same line up given how they both play, I don’t know how Mourinho is going to do it long term but if Lukaku keeps giving the kind of performances he has been given recently without scoring I don’t know if there is a place for him in the team.”
It an enviable position to be in, having to choose between a valuable young striker that has been, for the most part, banging in goals all season or one of the best strikers to ever play the game. It’s now up to whatever forward that is played to deliver.
