Romelu Lukaku

[The_Flash 1,144]

Lukaku was like lighting in that in that Arsenal game, so fast

[The Mak 4,459]

The man who compares the two players also says this afterwards:

Ridiculous ?????????? whats fucking ridiculous. Lets wait until Lukaku has played as long as Drodba did and we'll compare their stats. Dont think Lukaku will have a Champions league winners medal and two Premiership titles along with numerous cup medals under his belt. And I dont see him scoring the winning penalty for us either.

Never judge a race at the beginning......Judge it at the finish line mate..............

We didn't have Drogba at 20... This is a marathon, not a sprint

And you freak out when I say it's ridiculous to compare right now... Are you actually for real?

[The Skipper 20,593]

Put more into that match today than our strikers could manage between them.

Here's the thing....we've loaned him to a club who I think are probably better than us. What Martinez has got them playing is remarkable in such a short space of time.

Do you agree with me now that they do play the right sort of football for Romelu (who has started almost every game since he's gone there) to be developing at?

Honestly, this is good. Everton loan spell will be fantastic for Romelu's future here IMO.

[OneMoSalah 8,616]

Game against Arsenal showed me that hes not ready to be our main striker, Koscielny and Mertesacker had it far too easy most of the game.

He still doesn't understand that if you stand behind a defensive line you are offside, he stood still a lot during the game, mostly in offside positions, he had some good moments like towards the end when he took the ball off Arteta and had an effort on goal. His link up play at times was good but also at times it wasn't. Barkley picked the ball up and plays a nice pass between Gibbs and Koscielny but he didn't make the run, he does this at times when he should make a run, its frustrating at times to watch but hes a young guy who will get better. Barkley even had a go at him hinting at the fact he should have made the run.

Martinez will make him a better player as he's going to play every week in a team that the expectations aren't as big as Chelsea's. We always complain about 2 things, either 1) we don't play young players often enough or 2) young players don't perform well when they are in our team. Its ridiculous.

[Blue Armour 4,168]

Lukaku was like lighting in that in that Arsenal game, so fast

That last charge towards goal (where he blazed a shot over the crossbar) showed his real strength, quite literally.

I think posters like Torontochelsea do have a valid point when they say a prolific striker for one team will not necessarily achieve similar stats for another, no matter how much technically better the second team may be.

Everton are set up one way,to achieve their season objectives and Chelsea another. Chelsea don't always play a direct game, and try to make full use of their midfield qualities to win a match.As such, the build-up play demands more from the strikers as opposed to just making runs into dangerous areas. It will take more than a prolific goal scorer to work with this team.

However Lukaku has shown, albeit inconsistently, that there is much more to his game than just being a lethal finisher. He has all the talent needed to mold him into the type of forward this Chelsea team needs.

[Thomas Williams 166]

Obviously he's really raw, and he's far from the best striker in the world. But honestly, I think if he was given the same starts torres was this season, he would have had more goals for us than Torres has. You'll have a very hard time convincing me otherwise.

At the very least he is more dangerous in the air, which gives the opposing defenses something to be afraid of. With our tiny AM's, it would be nice to have some more physicality in the final third (Ba does a decent job of that, but his shooting boots have been lost for a long time.

Fact is, despite his technical shortcomings, he finds a way to get goals. He just does. And though I doubt he'd be as a prolific as he has been for West Brom and Everton, he would still do well here. And as a HUGE bonus, he would adapt more and more to our team, and by the time he's 25 he would be among the very best in the world, I guarantee you.

The rest of our strikers are just collecting paychecks, Lukaku has something to prove.

[The only place to be 11,313]

Game against Arsenal showed me that hes not ready to be our main striker, Koscielny and Mertesacker had it far too easy most of the game.

And yet he still made a nuisance of himself and almost created something out of nothing at the end.

Do you agree with me now that they do play the right sort of football for Romelu (who has started almost every game since he's gone there) to be developing at?

Honestly, this is good. Everton loan spell will be fantastic for Romelu's future here IMO.

I think he develops wherever he plays. I think he also makes us a better team and that his loaning could be the difference between us winning the league or not.

He is our most effective striker and we loaned him out. We could loan him to Barcelona and I think it would be the wrong move for both him and this club.

[BleedsBlue 1,549]

oh so now he's not ready to be our main striker? make up your mind people and stick to one thing!

[The Skipper 20,593]

I think he develops wherever he plays. I think he also makes us a better team and that his loaning could be the difference between us winning the league or not.

'Playing' being the key word here. I'm not arguing about whether he's better than our current strikers - I've always said he is but you and I both know that Mourinho was not going to make Lukaku his number 1 or even number 2 with the way things were looking, which is why I said in the first place that it's better that he goes out on loan to a club with the right manager, ethos, ambition and where he'll play a lot.

[kellzfresh 7,226]

Lukaku made a lot of runs against arsenal. Unfortunately the midfielders especially mirallas didnt look up a lot of times to spot those runs. The last chance he created for himself was great, out muscled arteta and got a chance but he shot over though.

I like how he makes a lot of runs behind the defenders, it keeps the defenders so occupied and the midfielders play better.

His situation is just like mata, mata has some disadvantages, but at the end of the day we create far more with him playing. Lukaku has a lot of disadvantages but he can assure you 20 EPL goals if he plays here, which means we will win more with him than what we have now.

He's proved himself in westbrom, a counter attack team and now is doing so in everton a possession team. He's in perfect condition to come back to us and do some damage.

[yorkie 10]

Lukaku made a lot of runs against arsenal. Unfortunately the midfielders especially mirallas didnt look up a lot of times to spot those runs. The last chance he created for himself was great, out muscled arteta and got a chance but he shot over though.

I like how he makes a lot of runs behind the defenders, it keeps the defenders so occupied and the midfielders play better.

His situation is just like mata, mata has some disadvantages, but at the end of the day we create far more with him playing. Lukaku has a lot of disadvantages but he can assure you 20 EPL goals if he plays here, which means we will win more with him than what we have now.

He's proved himself in westbrom, a counter attack team and now is doing so in everton a possession team. He's in perfect condition to come back to us and do some damage.

Indeed he really ran his ass off and found the spaces in the back of the Arsenal defence.

Too bad they didn't try to reach him a bit more and rather played the ball backwards then taking the risk and try to play it to Lukaku.

[The only place to be 11,313]

'Playing' being the key word here. I'm not arguing about whether he's better than our current strikers - I've always said he is but you and I both know that Mourinho was not going to make Lukaku his number 1 or even number 2 with the way things were looking, which is why I said in the first place that it's better that he goes out on loan to a club with the right manager, ethos, ambition and where he'll play a lot.

Unfortunately you might be right. We have the best academy in the country and one of the best in the world, but we have a manager who is more likely to slag off a young player than actually play him.

[OneMoSalah 8,616]

And yet he still made a nuisance of himself and almost created something out of nothing at the end.

I think he develops wherever he plays. I think he also makes us a better team and that his loaning could be the difference between us winning the league or not.

He is our most effective striker and we loaned him out. We could loan him to Barcelona and I think it would be the wrong move for both him and this club.

I said that towards the end that he nearly scored. Its just the games against United and Arsenal in particular for Everton he hasn't stood out like he has in other games, shows he's still got somethings to work on (like his movement at times is so frustrating), obviously we aren't in a position where we can really say though that he wouldn't improve us because he probably would but if we were in such a situation with a Falcao or a Lewa or another top striker we wouldn't be talking about how we need to recall him this badly.

[yuvala 2,167]

Lukaku made a lot of runs against arsenal. Unfortunately the midfielders especially mirallas didnt look up a lot of times to spot those runs. The last chance he created for himself was great, out muscled arteta and got a chance but he shot over though.

I like how he makes a lot of runs behind the defenders, it keeps the defenders so occupied and the midfielders play better.

His situation is just like mata, mata has some disadvantages, but at the end of the day we create far more with him playing. Lukaku has a lot of disadvantages but he can assure you 20 EPL goals if he plays here, which means we will win more with him than what we have now.

He's proved himself in westbrom, a counter attack team and now is doing so in everton a possession team. He's in perfect condition to come back to us and do some damage.

Really annoyed me.. made some really good runs, no pass though.

It's kinda wierd because you'd think he'll be their target man, but he really isn't.

It's like he's waiting there, making movements like a target man, but they dont give him the ball as if he actually was one.

[Weckerz 3,781]

I said that towards the end that he nearly scored. Its just the games against United and Arsenal in particular for Everton he hasn't stood out like he has in other games, shows he's still got somethings to work on (like his movement at times is so frustrating), obviously we aren't in a position where we can really say though that he wouldn't improve us because he probably would but if we were in such a situation with a Falcao or a Lewa or another top striker we wouldn't be talking about how we need to recall him this badly.

That's the whole issue, loaning out our best striker. We don't want to recall him because he is a young promising player, we want him here because he's our best option.

[kellzfresh 7,226]

Really annoyed me.. made some really good runs, no pass though.

It's kinda wierd because you'd think he'll be their target man, but he really isn't.

It's like he's waiting there, making movements like a target man, but they dont give him the ball as if he actually was one.

Thats the disadvantage of a possession team like everton. Sometimes they just linkup play and it isolates the striker. But because lukaku has presence than our strikers, he occupies the two centerbacks at all times and leaves the AM more space. Thats why Barkley had a great game.

[Las7 951]

It's fairly obvious that during big matches there are a few things Martinez instructs his players to do:

1) Full backs don't cross towards Lukaku in fear of loosing the ball and allowing big teams to counter attack(unless Baines is playing he is allowed to cross).

2) Lukaku plays the ball back into midfield with the back of the goal in cases where there is more than one defender on him.

3) Lukaku is allowed to try and beat defenders when there is only one player closing him down.

Lukaku is basically used to get more space for other Attacking midfielders when they play against big clubs as opposed to the team being focused on creating chances for him. Yesterday and against United there were several instances of Lukaku playing the simple pass into Barkley or Pienaar when there were two players on his back while he tried to beat his man when they were one on one.

Martinez has done a good job at Everton and they play possession based football with little risk when facing top clubs hence he is able to get better results than Moyes ever was. You also have to account the fact Lukaku is more closely marked than a player like Kone or Jelavic would be hence allowing more space for the attacking midfielders.

I'd expect more from Lukaku after a few more months in the club in this big matches - since I believe he is still getting used to this tactical scheme because that's not how he was used at West Brom, In fact I feel this is how we would utilize him if he was at the club in such matches. Everton are starting to out play their top 4 rivals as they did in the first 40 minutes against Arsenal.

What I don't agree with is that he would not get the service at the club I feel that despite everything we have the best attacking midfielders in the League(possibly only Ozil is a better creating midfielder than what we have available). The problem is that our strikers aren't mobile enough or exert confidence in our attacking midfielders thus instead of looking for Torres/Ba/Eto'o the likes of Ramires/Hazard/Schurrle/Mata/Lampard feel like they need to do it all themselves. Imagine if we had someone like RvP demanding the ball do you honestly feel any of our attacking midfielders will look for goal every time instead of playing it into a player demanding the ball every time it's around the box and making himself available. Last year largely the same United side ended up being comfortable title winners simply because RvP's form - thats the difference between us being in the top four and challenging for the title.

I'm not saying Lukaku is that player but he has more chances into turning into a player like that than the likes of Torres/Ba/Eto'o and he could have just as easily developed playing here considering we didn't end up signing a World Class striker.

At the moment we just need a consistant Goal Scorer in the League our strikers haven scored an away goal in the EPL in the year of 2013; they have 4 goals between them in the EPL and it's fucking December.

[OneMoSalah 8,616]

Thats the disadvantage of a possession team like everton. Sometimes they just linkup play and it isolates the striker. But because lukaku has presence than our strikers, he occupies the two centerbacks at all times and leaves the AM more space. Thats why Barkley had a great game.

No Barkley had a great game because he wasn't afraid to run at Arsenal and he didn't let his head drop if things didn't come off. He has a great mentality as in he's fearless (not afraid to try difficult passes/shots/flicks, take the ball under pressure etc.), strong and most of all technically excellent. The amount of times I seen him receive the ball with his back to goal under pressure from one or two Arsenal players was incredible, the fact he always turned and beat them as well before going went forward without losing the ball in some critical areas of the pitch was even more incredible. He was the same against Manchester United, as Alan Hansen and Danny Mills said on MOTD, we seem to see that coach that out of kids in Britain, they don't want to try and be positive incase they make a mistake or lose it or whatever but Barkley didn't let that affect him once. Barkley has been the best English player in the PL after Rooney so far this season in my opinion. Next Gazza like some people have touted? I don't want to say yes or no but who knows....