Sulky Lukaku doing himself no favours in quest to silence skeptics
Romelu Lukaku was again in the goals as Manchester United won at West Brom – but the sulky Belgian is doing himself no favours in his battle to silence the skeptics.
When you arrive at a new club for a huge transfer fee, there’s always going to questions over whether you adapt and prove yourself worthy of such a giant outlay. Plenty, thankfully, do justify the hype, but very occasionally there are those that fail – and the failures seem to live longer in the memory than the success stories do…..
At Manchester United that scrutiny is double what you’d expect elsewhere: Just ask Paul Pogba who seemed to attract an avalanche of negative headlines as he struggled to re-adapt to the figures of the English game.
But despite a disjointed season second time around in which Pogba has first suffered a problematic hamstring injury, and then forced to serve a domestic three-match ban, much of the spotlight appears to have moved away from the Frenchman and onto his close friend and new teammate Lukaku.
Fifteen goals from his first 26 goals in a United shirt is certainly no mean return and the player should take satisfaction from the start to life he has made at Old Trafford.
And yet there are those who feel Lukaku just isn’t up to United standard – with even our own Monday Verdict article last week slating the muscular frontman.
And while we’re not going to re-open the debate about whether Lukaku is ‘United-class’ – given we discussed that last week – it is worth observing that the sulky Belgian is doing himself no favours with his on-field demeanor.
For the second match day running, Lukaku opened the scoring for United; for the second match day running, Lukaku ‘celebrated’ his goal by not celebrating. And while the travelling United fans in the visiting Smethwick End were going balmy, Lukaku simply stood there. Emotionless. Motionless.
“It’s because of the criticism he’s getting. He’s not doing a lot wrong and is playing in a team where he’s not getting a lot of service. To a large extent, he’s had to manufacture his goals,” said Graeme Souness in the Sky Sports studios.
Jamie Redknapp was even slightly less sympathetic. “I’d give anything to celebrate a goal again. I don’t get it – why would you not celebrate?” Is it because he’s had a loan here?….”
Souness was probably on to something with his point about the criticism he has faced, with the accusations of Lukaku being a flat-track bully and having a poor first touch still fresh in the memory.
While somewhat harsh, the accusations may have an element of truth about them. Nonetheless, Lukaku can silence his critics in two ways and get those supporters onside….
- Keep scoring the goals
- When you do score, go mental. Celebrate with the fans and show them it matters to you,in the same way it does to them. After all, is there a better way to get supporters onside than there is to celebrate like a mentalist?
Take Jesse Lingard: he might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but as a player he’s improving plenty and showed with the afternoon’s second goal, courtesy of a huge deflection of Ahmed Hegazi, that he enjoys it when he scores. And quite rightly so. Rightly or wrongly, these players live privileged lives and are at the top of their profession.
Goals alone might not be enough to win Lukaku love from Manchester United supporters; scoring lots of them AND celebrating with them, might just help his cause though….
After all, scoring goals is what football is all about and should be the spark for joy; not act as a sign that you are trying to unburden yourself of some unwanted condemnation.
MOURINHO DESERVES CREDIT FOR BRILLIANT UNITED FORM
In pretty much any other season, United’s form so far this season would be enough to suggest a title push was likely. But with Manchester City sweeping away all before them, it seems United, along with Chelsea, are simply competing for the prize of being ‘best of the rest’.
41 points from 18 games is a brilliant return for United and represents their best start to the season since Sir Alex Ferguson’s last season in charge when the club famously collected their 20th league title success.
In some respects, you have to feel sorry for Mourinho with ahead of them, Manchester City, his side appear to be done by what looks, even in this relatively early stage, one of THE great Premier League sides.
STAT:
Only Manchester City (+13pts) from the top six have improved more than Manchester United (+8) at the same point as last year.
Chelsea -8
Liverpool -6,
Arsenal -4
Tottenham -2 pic.twitter.com/OkGbAzWAHA— TEAMtalk (@TEAMtalk) December 14, 2017
Records and stats won’t mean much to Mourinho and the very nature of the fact that his side are second best will hurt him – and hurt him deeply.
In the end United had to hang on against West Brom and you can’t help but feel it’s a result that sums up their season: digging out results and doing what needs to be done but ultimately falling short of the quality required for the ultimate prize….
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James Marshment