Exactly. I have no idea what people expect from a player if that is considered bad.
Ever since his loan season at WBA (2012/13) I'd say only his last season at Man Utd was a big disappointment. Maybe at a stretch you can consider Lukaku's 2014-15 season at Everton below par too because he only scored ten league goals but even then he finished the season at 20 goals overall due to a strong Europa League campaign (8 goals in 9 games), and after that season he bounced back in the PL too with 18 goals and 25 goals over the following two seasons. That 2016/17 season at Everton was especially good with 24 non-penalty league goals, which is the same as Harry Kane who finished top scorer in the PL with 29 goals (5 pens).
But I guess with some people Lukaku just can't win, they've already made up their minds that he's shit and they only focus on the bad things.
If Lukaku now returns to the PL and stays with Chelsea for the next 4-5 years (which I would assume he does given the investment) he has every chance to finish his career in the top4 PL goalscorers ever, behind only Shearer, Rooney and Kane. In that time he would need to score only 75 goals to achieve that, which is a very reasonable expectation. And if he's a big success he can even usurp Rooney on the list (would need 95 goals to do that).
Kevin De Bruyne’s corridor of certainty — ranking his top 10 assists for City
https://theathletic.com/1723203/2020/04/06/kevin-de-bruynes-manchester-city/
Kevin De Bruyne had racked up 16 assists in the Premier League before the campaign was derailed, leaving him just four away from breaking Thierry Henry’s record of 20, which has stood since the 2002-03 season.
Over the past year or so, the Manchester City midfielder has created his signature assist — the low cross from the right-hand side that seemingly no defence can do anything about. He has created a corridor of certainty.
De Bruyne has been conjuring chances out of nothing throughout his career, and has amassed quite a collection of assists during his near five years at the Etihad Stadium.
So which is his best assist?
10. Crystal Palace 1-2 Manchester City, November 2016
Despite making that right-sided cross his trademark, it’s the variety of De Bruyne’s assists that have made him such a consistent threat.
Going back to Pep Guardiola’s first season in England, here’s an example of how the Belgian does stuff out of the ordinary.
On an already unpredictable afternoon at Selhurst Park — Yaya Toure made a sudden and shock return from almost three months in exile — De Bruyne set the ball down for a corner on the right-hand side and put his right hand in the air, a signal to his team-mates of what was to come.
He then fired in a low cross along the ground that had enough pace on it to go pretty much exactly where it needed to. Maybe David Silva could have got to it, maybe he was a decoy, but the ball fell to Toure around six yards out, for the Ivorian to cap his surprise comeback with a match-winning goal double.
With less than 10 minutes left and the score tied at 1-1, it was De Bruyne’s unusual delivery — the equivalent of a direct free kick sneaking underneath a jumping wall, which he’s also done — that made the difference.
9. Crystal Palace 1-3 Manchester City, April 2019
Not all of De Bruyne’s assists have come at Selhurst Park but this was another example of how he can carve open the most disciplined of defences. With City needing to win every game at the back end of last season to fend off the threat of Liverpool, this trip to Palace — five days after losing the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final across London at Tottenham — was earmarked as a tricky assignment, so much so that Guardiola had rested De Bruyne and Leroy Sane against Spurs for it.
Less than 15 minutes in, De Bruyne picked up the ball inside his own half, took a few strides forward and then lasered a straight pass directly through the Palace midfield and defence.
The ball slowed down perfectly the second Raheem Sterling met it inside the area. The England forward took one touch and buried a superb finish in the far top corner.
Sterling still had plenty to do with the finish, but De Bruyne’s pass helped City on their way to an important victory. For good measure he also got the assist for their third goal by Gabriel Jesus at the end, which clinched a 3-1 win.
8. Manchester City 5-1 Leicester City, February 2018
The best De Bruyne assists are generally those that give team-mates a proper tap-in.
In the past year, most of these low crosses to the back post have come from the right, but on this occasion he showed he can do it from the other side too, even with the angle against him.
As part of a one-two with Sterling on the left, he ran down the side of the Leicester defence and then, perhaps because the pass was slightly behind him, perhaps because he felt it was the most unpredictable route, probably just because it was the best route, De Bruyne opened up his body, fading away to the left, and curled the ball to the back post with his right foot for Sergio Aguero to score his first of a four-goal haul.
It was a display of fantastic technique that produced a cross precise enough to evade the defenders going one way and the goalkeeper going the other and, if you look closely, you can see his arms come out in celebration before the ball has even passed the last defender.
He knew.
7. Manchester City 6-1 Newcastle United, October 2015
He could have done it with his left foot if he’d really wanted to. Going back to the early months of his first season at City, under Manuel Pellegrini, De Bruyne and Aguero combined to score basically the same goal as above, this time against Newcastle.
Only when he got the ball in a similar area of the pitch here, he was facing the corner flag.
As soon as the time was right, he swivelled in the opposite direction and played a first-time low cross with his left foot that evaded everybody and found Aguero at the back post, allowing the Argentinean to slide in his fifth and final goal of a very long afternoon for the visitors.
A goal out of nothing.
6. Southampton 0-1 Manchester City, May 2018
This one was out of nothing, too, especially given the 92 minutes of drudgery that came before it.
City needed to win at St Mary’s on the final day of the season to reach the 100-point milestone, but the match was played at a snail’s pace and little happened in it.
Enter De Bruyne. This was far from his most artistic of assists but for the sheer significance of the goal, not to mention the scenes in the away end and on the touchline (did Ederson, a substitute, get booked for his celebrations?) it has to be on this list.
Compared to his other efforts, this was a rather agricultural hoof over the top. But De Bruyne chose this as his third favourite assist in an interview last year: “It’s just precision, you have to manage how hard you’re going to kick it, but the main thing is that you get the ball over the defence, that it gets into his stride, without stopping, and he has to do the rest.”
That was probably a rare example of De Bruyne making something that looks easy sound difficult, but had he not perfectly weighted that ball over the top from inside his own half, Jesus would never have been able to take it down and scoop it over goalkeeper Alex McCarthy to create one of the most iconic moments in recent club history.
5. Aston Villa 1-6 Manchester City, January 2020
Our top five places are reserved for true art.
While this assist is not as symbolically important as No 6 was, it is a much better representation of De Bruyne’s abilities.
Three of them in particular; the ability to drive the ball forward, to know where it needs to go, and to get it there.
Just before half-time in a Villa Park hammering, he pulled out one of those pinpoint right-sided crosses, but added a few extra levels of difficulty. Normally he needs the help of somebody else to create those crucial spaces just outside the area for him, whether a one-two or sneakily arriving from right-back, but this time he did it himself. Picking up a fairly routine square ball just past halfway, he immediately set off towards goal, leaving two men in his wake.
Within four seconds he was in that favoured spot of his and he knew somebody would be gambling at the far post. This time it was Jesus, who again was left with a pretty simple finish.
Jesus was in so much space that you feared the intervention of the dreaded VAR, but replays showed De Bruyne had just bent the ball around what was left of the Villa defence.
4. Arsenal 2-2 Manchester City, April 2017
This one is maybe a bit more obscure, but it’s a great example of De Bruyne making the incredibly difficult look far too easy.
Nobody quite knew what to make of this early-days Guardiola team late in the Spaniard’s debut season, when they went to the equally enigmatic Arsenal.
After Danny Welbeck nearly scored with a slide tackle, Willy Caballero’s clipped goal kick into midfield was won in the air by Shkodran Mustafi. The ball was at hip height when it bounced up to De Bruyne, so he quickly positioned himself to propel it forward with his instep.
The ball travelled between five Arsenal players and now Sane was racing in on goal. The German didn’t touch the ball until he was about 20 yards out, allowing him to dance past David Ospina and put the ball into an empty net. In the blink of an eye, City were in the lead.
A lot of De Bruyne’s assists come from pre-planned patterns of play, but he’s always had the ability to conjure something out of nothing, and this is a fantastic example.
3. Manchester City 5-0 Liverpool, September 2017
Here’s another, and possibly another forgotten one, from a thumping of Liverpool that is looked upon a little differently given Sadio Mane’s red card midway through the first half. But before that wince-making collision with Ederson, City were a goal up — and De Bruyne created it.
There was barely anything happening as the ball dropped at his feet from Fernandinho’s header in midfield, so much so that Liverpool’s famous press had no time to spring into action.
As De Bruyne put his foot on the ball and turned his head to look towards goal, Aguero was on the move. “Give it to me!” he briefly gestured with his arms. Look at the clock in the grabs below: less than a second.
De Bruyne did give it to him. From a square-on position he quickly turned and played a routine-looking ball straight through the heart of the Liverpool defence.
Again, it ran so perfectly that Aguero did not touch it until he had set foot in the penalty area, again allowing him to nip around goalkeeper Simon Mignolet and finish into an empty net.
‘All’ De Bruyne did was put his foot on the ball, look to his left and play a 20-yard pass in a straight line. Simple, but devastatingly effective.
2. Everton 1-3 Manchester City, March 2018
This assist is a bit like the one at Arsenal, version 2.0. Maybe 3.0. It is a beautiful goal that happened so quickly, you’d do well to find a proper camera angle of the whole move.
Again it started with a goal kick, but this time with a little more direction. The Everton players, not wanting to be caught out by a huge Ederson punt over the top, nor let visitors City play out too easily from the back, left acres of space in the middle of the pitch. Ederson clipped the ball right into the heart of that space, where Sane had burst inside to meet it.
As soon as this happened, De Bruyne took off down the right. This was clearly pre-planned. Sane flicked the bouncing ball past a couple of players and lobbed it over the top for the Belgian.
Again it was at around hip height at the time of impact, and he was on the stretch too, but that did not stop him helping the ball on its way to Jesus, who was in the right place to plant a header into the net, albeit off goalkeeper Jordan Pickford’s shoulder.
It was not the cleanest end to the move but it was clearly planned to perfection, and to see it unfold in real time was a real privilege. It clearly meant a lot to the City bench, who celebrated with each other as if to say, “We knew that was gonna work”.
1. Manchester City 7-2 Stoke City, October 2017
You all probably guessed it was going to be this one, but it is the obvious choice because it’s the best. It’s the one that springs to mind most readily, no matter how many inch-perfect assists De Bruyne has delivered in more than two years since it happened.
But first, an honourable mention to one of the best second-assists in Premier League history, when De Bruyne turned this shooting opportunity into a through-ball to Sane, allowing the winger to square it to Sterling for a tap-in.
Stoke then scored two quick goals either side of half-time, which their then-boss Mark Hughes quipped only served to anger City, who answered with their fourth, fifth and sixth of the game all in the space of seven minutes; De Bruyne setting up two of them.
First, he won the ball back from Kurt Zouma just inside the Stoke half, stormed onto the loose ball, charged down the right and fired in an inch-perfect cross that curled around the last defender and found Jesus at the far post. It was classic De Bruyne, that fabulous blend of industry and ingenuity.
And that was just the warm-up.
Just over five minutes later, he stretched to make a loose pass his, again just inside the visitors’ half. As he took one more touch forward he surveyed what lay ahead of him; Jesus was deep, because it was his bad ball that nearly got City into trouble. Sterling was pretty well covered and Sane was all the way over on the other side of the pitch, but Kyle Walker was open on the right.
De Bruyne went for Sane.
The result was something that looked more at home at the lawn bowls world championship, arrowing yet curling delicately towards its target, speeding up and then slowing down exactly when it needed to.
Behind the midfielder yet in front of the defender, it still had enough legs on it to beat the full-back who was a good 30 yards away, and hardly in a bad position either, and roll straight into the path of Sane’s left foot, allowing him to stride on to it and score.
De Bruyne said recently that he will extend his career an extra two years due to how much he is missing football during this coronavirus triggered lay-off.
Here’s to many more of these inspired moments.
SPOT ON!
Then sometimes buying the most amazing gifts. But since your wife always thinks you buy shitty things, she's not even putting effort in it and barely uses any of them. In the end gives it away to her friends who cannot believe how stupid your wife is to give all these jewels away for peanuts!!!
Salah, KDB, De Bruyne, Ake, Traore,...
SPOT ON!
Then sometimes buying the most amazing gifts. But since your wife always thinks you buy shitty things, she's not even putting effort in it and barely uses any of them. In the end gives it away to her friends who cannot believe how stupid your wife is to give all these jewels away for peanuts!!!
Salah, KDB, De Bruyne, Ake, Traore,...
I read a lot of comments that he's too old now. Don't blame me :). Been telling this since 2011 I just saw in this post above :p!
On Topic: 'old' but surely worth the money! I would still GO for it!
SPOT ON!
Then sometimes buying the most amazing gifts. But since your wife always thinks you buy shitty things, she's not even putting effort in it and barely uses any of them. In the end gives it away to her friends who cannot believe how stupid your wife is to give all these jewels away for peanuts!!!
Salah, KDB, De Bruyne, Ake, Traore,...
Buying ZAHA for £80 million with Batsman on the bench would be 'the final shot' for me as it comes to trust in our board/management.
Zaha has 2 goals & 2 assists in 1375 minutes this season. Michy has 1 goal & 2 assists in 96(!!!!!) minutes => 10 games, coming from the bench 10 times with only 4 games where he got more than 10 minutes.
On top of that he's 1 year older than Michy !
If they push through on him, this would the XXX th time that I'm totally mindblown on how the club's transfer policy works ... I'm out
Buying ZAHA for £80 million with Batsman on the bench would be 'the final shot' for me as it comes to trust in our board/management.
Zaha has 2 goals & 2 assists in 1375 minutes this season. Michy has 1 goal & 2 assists in 96(!!!!!) minutes => 10 games, coming from the bench 10 times with only 4 games where he got more than 10 minutes.
On top of that he's 1 year older than Michy !
If they push through on him, this would the XXX th time that I'm totally mindblown on how the club's transfer policy works ... I'm out
Buying ZAHA for £80 million with Batsman on the bench would be 'the final shot' for me as it comes to trust in our board/management.
Zaha has 2 goals & 2 assists in 1375 minutes this season. Michy has 1 goal & 2 assists in 96(!!!!!) minutes => 10 games, coming from the bench 10 times with only 4 games where he got more than 10 minutes.
On top of that he's 1 year older than Michy !
If they push through on him, this would the XXX th time that I'm totally mindblown on how the club's transfer policy works ... I'm out
Buying ZAHA for £80 million with Batsman on the bench would be 'the final shot' for me as it comes to trust in our board/management.
Zaha has 2 goals & 2 assists in 1375 minutes this season. Michy has 1 goal & 2 assists in 96(!!!!!) minutes => 10 games, coming from the bench 10 times with only 4 games where he got more than 10 minutes.
On top of that he's 1 year older than Michy !
If they push through on him, this would the XXX th time that I'm totally mindblown on how the club's transfer policy works ... I'm out
Buying ZAHA for £80 million with Batsman on the bench would be 'the final shot' for me as it comes to trust in our board/management.
Zaha has 2 goals & 2 assists in 1375 minutes this season. Michy has 1 goal & 2 assists in 96(!!!!!) minutes => 10 games, coming from the bench 10 times with only 4 games where he got more than 10 minutes.
On top of that he's 1 year older than Michy !
If they push through on him, this would the XXX th time that I'm totally mindblown on how the club's transfer policy works ... I'm out
We of all people know best that Eden doesn't like pre season friendlies right.
I expect that he will explode once competition starts (that is on the pitch, not out of his shorts :)!
I think he has made it clear several times. He loves Chelsea. He has always loved Madrid.
Ffs, Madrid aren't even traditional rivals. We beat them in the European super cup ages ago, but that's it. Not sure why fans are getting so worked up about things like these.
I think it is a nice way to end Eden's passage by showing a video of him when he was only 10 years old! His youth team (Braine) got in the 1/4 finals of the belgian Youth cup. Starting at 00:26 seconds, interviewer asks him if he's feeling allright: "a little bit stressed. But I feel good about myself!". "What would you think the result will be" => EDEN on a very cute and typical Eden way "we will lose! OH no wait, we're are gonna wait. But I don't know how much"! After the game, which they lost 6-0 (their first loss of the season) Eden gets back in front of the camera at 02:12. "was it impossible to beat them today?" => Eden: "they were too strong for us". Interviewer: "what did they had more then you". Eden: "pace and technique". Interviewer: "you don't feel bad at all don't you? Eden: No because I know I will win 7 prices at Chelsea in a few years time" :)!!
BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY: don't tell the madridistas . This is a clear proof that Eden WAS a blue, IS a blue and will always REMAIN a blue in his heart!!
KTBFHH Eden! Best of luck in Madrid!!
I think it is a nice way to end Eden's passage by showing a video of him when he was only 10 years old! His youth team (Braine) got in the 1/4 finals of the belgian Youth cup. Starting at 00:26 seconds, interviewer asks him if he's feeling allright: "a little bit stressed. But I feel good about myself!". "What would you think the result will be" => EDEN on a very cute and typical Eden way "we will lose! OH no wait, we're are gonna wait. But I don't know how much"! After the game, which they lost 6-0 (their first loss of the season) Eden gets back in front of the camera at 02:12. "was it impossible to beat them today?" => Eden: "they were too strong for us". Interviewer: "what did they had more then you". Eden: "pace and technique". Interviewer: "you don't feel bad at all don't you? Eden: No because I know I will win 7 prices at Chelsea in a few years time" :)!!
BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY: don't tell the madridistas . This is a clear proof that Eden WAS a blue, IS a blue and will always REMAIN a blue in his heart!!
KTBFHH Eden! Best of luck in Madrid!!
I think it is a nice way to end Eden's passage by showing a video of him when he was only 10 years old! His youth team (Braine) got in the 1/4 finals of the belgian Youth cup. Starting at 00:26 seconds, interviewer asks him if he's feeling allright: "a little bit stressed. But I feel good about myself!". "What would you think the result will be" => EDEN on a very cute and typical Eden way "we will lose! OH no wait, we're are gonna wait. But I don't know how much"! After the game, which they lost 6-0 (their first loss of the season) Eden gets back in front of the camera at 02:12. "was it impossible to beat them today?" => Eden: "they were too strong for us". Interviewer: "what did they had more then you". Eden: "pace and technique". Interviewer: "you don't feel bad at all don't you? Eden: No because I know I will win 7 prices at Chelsea in a few years time" :)!!
BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY: don't tell the madridistas . This is a clear proof that Eden WAS a blue, IS a blue and will always REMAIN a blue in his heart!!
KTBFHH Eden! Best of luck in Madrid!!
You all know how much I love Eden. I'm going to leave a long ass post as this guy deserves sooner rather than later but I've been busy and I haven't had time to get to it. I see some weird people still sneaking in some criticisms still about how he only ever had his sights set on Madrid and how he never loved us. As if he didn't sign a 5 year contract in 2015 when he could have signed a much shorter one and left a long time ago. Only once did we hear from Eden's mouth prior to the post match interview in Baku that he wanted to leave and that was only last year after the world cup after SIX years at the club, (which never built anything substantive around him to help maximize his talent) Anyway, I'll get to my appreciation comment soon for my favourite Chelsea player and athlete of all time 💙
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