That chance could very well have cost him his job. He knew he didn’t want Lukaku from the season before we should have had a replacement ready before scrambling for Mandzukic last minute.
Selling Lukaku...
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That chance could very well have cost him his job. He knew he didn’t want Lukaku from the season before we should have had a replacement ready before scrambling for Mandzukic last minute.
It was said a lot on here that this season would be a season of pain to a certain extent. Herrera, Lukaku, Sanchez, Fellaini, Smalling. Not that we'd necessarily miss their quality, but that we only really replaced Smalling with Maguire. But Ole took a gamble and it looks like it had paid off.
I remember after the defeat to Everton last year, Neville said all he wanted to see was "11 players that want to be at the club." Right now, we have a first team that not only satisfies that condition, but are a couple of players away from genuinely challenging. It's a remarkable transformation. And you look at the front 3 yesterday, and the football they play, well Lukaku isn't anywhere near that level as a footballer. He's a goalscorer, but the style that we are now playing doesn't happen with him in the team.
It was a brilliant piece of business, recouping almost the entire fee we paid. Reinvesting that money into the likes of Bruno and Sancho means we've really turned a corner in our recruitment.
I remember after the defeat to Everton last year, Neville said all he wanted to see was "11 players that want to be at the club." Right now, we have a first team that not only satisfies that condition, but are a couple of players away from genuinely challenging. It's a remarkable transformation. And you look at the front 3 yesterday, and the football they play, well Lukaku isn't anywhere near that level as a footballer. He's a goalscorer, but the style that we are now playing doesn't happen with him in the team.
It was a brilliant piece of business, recouping almost the entire fee we paid. Reinvesting that money into the likes of Bruno and Sancho means we've really turned a corner in our recruitment.
Lukaku will score goals no matter where he plays as that’s pretty much all he’s got to his game but for how we want to play he was never going to fit, Ole knew that instantly and Rashford was first choice striker with Lukaku on the bench.
Ole knows a thing or two about being a striker for United and it was he who took the bold decision to not only get rid of Lukaku but also switch Rashford and Martial around with Rashford on the left and Martial up top which has seen both men score 20 goals this season and I don’t think we’ve had two players score 20 in a season for 10 years ?
Other players had to sacrifice a lot of their game to help Lukaku and during that last half season Jose was in charge even that didn’t work for Lukaku, he’s a good goal scorer but not a good all round player and the con’s far outweighed the pro’s with him for United.
Right now we’re literally Sancho away from arguably one of the most exciting frontlines in Europe with Rashford, Martial, Greenwood, maybe Sancho, Pogba and Fernandes and Lukaku would only have hindered that so Ole deserves praise for being brave enough to take that gamble as it’s certainly paid off.
Ole knows a thing or two about being a striker for United and it was he who took the bold decision to not only get rid of Lukaku but also switch Rashford and Martial around with Rashford on the left and Martial up top which has seen both men score 20 goals this season and I don’t think we’ve had two players score 20 in a season for 10 years ?
Other players had to sacrifice a lot of their game to help Lukaku and during that last half season Jose was in charge even that didn’t work for Lukaku, he’s a good goal scorer but not a good all round player and the con’s far outweighed the pro’s with him for United.
Right now we’re literally Sancho away from arguably one of the most exciting frontlines in Europe with Rashford, Martial, Greenwood, maybe Sancho, Pogba and Fernandes and Lukaku would only have hindered that so Ole deserves praise for being brave enough to take that gamble as it’s certainly paid off.
Lukaku was never right for the club and is an overrated goalscorer. I can't take anyone who thinks he should have stayed seriously.
In Lukaku's best season he had a goal every 151 minutes. All three of our young forwards are ourperforming him; Martial is a goal every 143 mins, Rashford is a goal every 137 minutes and Mason is a goal every 126 minutes.
This is before we even start with his clumsy all-round play and laughable record against the top 6. The first half of the season we were without our best midfielder and were left with the likes of Lingard and Pereira as our primary creators as well, if we can keep our main creative players fit for most of the season I can see Rashford and Martial pushing for 25-30 goals each next season.
In Lukaku's best season he had a goal every 151 minutes. All three of our young forwards are ourperforming him; Martial is a goal every 143 mins, Rashford is a goal every 137 minutes and Mason is a goal every 126 minutes.
This is before we even start with his clumsy all-round play and laughable record against the top 6. The first half of the season we were without our best midfielder and were left with the likes of Lingard and Pereira as our primary creators as well, if we can keep our main creative players fit for most of the season I can see Rashford and Martial pushing for 25-30 goals each next season.
I can admit I wasn’t happy at all - perhaps it’s outdated but I always prefer to have an ‘out and out’ proven goal scorer in the squad, which in my opinion, doesn’t really fit Martial, Rashford etc. as a description. But they’re shared the goals and both hit 20 this season so I’m glad to be proved wrong!
Why not sod off and support them then?
Spot on.
There was huge fall out in the months afterwards that Lukaku was Jose 1st choice on one thread and on the anti Glazer / Woodward nonsense threads the same folks were spitting venom that Jose wasn't backed and didn't get his targets.
Real refused to sell Morata to us due to "faxgate", at least for a reasonable fee. They were looking for something in the ball park of £85-90m I think it was or could of been more. There was literally a turn around of days between the Morata not going to United and him signing for Chelsea then Lukaku being confirmed for United.
It was blatantly obvious what had happened for anyone who could look past their blind faith in Jose.
For what its worth I really never wanted Jose, but I always felt Morata would of suited Jose better than Lukaku and he reluctantly took Lukaku as the next best option.
Lukaku wasn't just poor on the pitch, he also didn't fit how we wanted to play so tended to make our other players struggle. And on top of that he seemed to be a problem in the dressing room. Constantly talking both on the field and in the media like he's the 'big man' (he seriously seems to have John Terry mentality without having the quality) and everyone else needs to step up, despite him being by far the worst performing player in the team last season. None of the other players seemed to even acknowledge him after he left, except for Shaw when he responded to Lukaku's ridiculous leaking of training ground data.
Someone like that is only going to create problems within the team and bring morale down if they aren't starting every game like he wanted to.
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It was the other way around. We thought Lukaku was going to Chelsea so we were signing Morata as the second option. Real were screwing us around but Morata was in the process of pushing it through (he even died his hair red lol), then we found out Lukaku was available after all and we got that done very quickly. Chelsea were furious (especially Conte) that they missed out on him, but they needed someone so they signed Morata a couple of days later.
Yeah Pogba of course got the "cancer" treatment tag.
Personally think it was Lukaku myself more than any other. His attitude is disgusting, the minute he was out of the club he ran his mouth off in the media about Ole, the board etc etc. He even insulted his team mates with that leak as you say.
The Athletic (media outlet) ran a story where he was late getting onto the team bus in pre season I think it was and Phelan was fuming from all reports. He showed up 45 mins late apparently and then Phelan went through him for a short cut and of course Rom was mouthing off. That was the absolute last straw I believe and it was a few days prior to him feckin off to train with Anderlecht kids.
He refused to show up for any other training at the club.
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I saw a lot of people saying Lukaku is an out and out striker, but what exactly does that mean? He was and is terrible at hold up play, regularly getting outmuscled by his marker and generally just atrocious aerially.
He is a big black version of Chicharito, now if your idea of the ideal striker is a poacher with next to none involvement in build up play and only job besides scoring is pressuring the defence by making runs, then he qualifies for that, barely. Otherwise, there’s nothing about him that screams ‘traditional no.9’.
Half the Caf was pointing out these flaws in his game and didn’t want him for the 75m price. Good thing Inter were dumb enough that we managed to mug them off and recoup the outlay.
He is a big black version of Chicharito, now if your idea of the ideal striker is a poacher with next to none involvement in build up play and only job besides scoring is pressuring the defence by making runs, then he qualifies for that, barely. Otherwise, there’s nothing about him that screams ‘traditional no.9’.
Half the Caf was pointing out these flaws in his game and didn’t want him for the 75m price. Good thing Inter were dumb enough that we managed to mug them off and recoup the outlay.
Exactly, Real fecked us around massively and they wanted around £80m with add ons etc for Morata. It was too much to our liking and soon as the news broke that Chelsea were signing him for approx £20m less, it was announced we'd sign Lukaku instead.
I mean look how positively Jose speak of Morata here in the link. The second link, he also confirms we bid for Morata.
Chelsea & Conte had to settle for Morata and United & Jose had to settle for Rom. Each manager / club didn't get what they wanted cause Real didn't want to deal with us over faxgate, which is basically what I am saying.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.c...er-news/man-utd-transfer-news-morata-13338244
https://www.goal.com/en-ie/news/alv...-jose-mourinho-epl-/922nwqve7llr1jhww5aux9lgw
I don't really get that answer, Klopp is my favorite manager and he was before he joined Liverpool. Should I sod off?
Never!
Did you miss when he disrespected teammembers or refused to train with the club? Ole was right to get rid of him.
Perhaps, depends on how much you like them?
Do you like him enough to want to see them succeed over United?
I can understand why he is liked, but still wouldn't want to see him be successful.
Personally, I'm hoping for complacency to set in and an implosion at LFC next season!
We can all dream right?
We signed Lukaku before Chelsea signed Morata. That's why they changed over to Morata instead. They definitely got their second choice.
For us it's debatable whether Morata or Lukaku was Mourinho's first choice. There were quite a few different stories coming out at the time.
There were some reports that Lukaku was his #1 choice but we didn't think he was an option, so that's why we were going for Morata. Real messed us around long enough that Mourinho and Pogba were able to work their magic on Lukaku and get him to change his mind, and the instant he did we swooped in and got that deal done. Other reports were that the main difference between them was that we thought we could get Morata for quite a bit cheaper, so as soon as it became obvious that Real were holding out about the same as we could get Lukaku for we just went and got him instead. Alternatively, maybe Morata truly was our first choice and Real were just painful enough that we ended it and went for the second choice of Lukaku instead.
Perhaps, depends on how much you like them?
Do you like him enough to want to see them succeed over United?
I can understand why he is liked, but still wouldn't want to see him be successful.
Personally, I'm hoping for complacency to set in and an implosion at LFC next season!
We can all dream right?
@RedStarUnited didn't suggest that he wasn't them to be successful, your post is one big straw man argument.
This reminds me a lot of when Fergie sold RVN.
Knew that Ronaldo and Rooney weren’t quite there yet but that they were the future and would get more out of them without the target man being static in the middl.
Knew that Ronaldo and Rooney weren’t quite there yet but that they were the future and would get more out of them without the target man being static in the middl.
I wouldn't read too much into the date of the actual signing. I mean, there's only 9 days in the difference between the two signings.
Chelsea signing Morata was not really discussed at all throughout the month of June, it kind of come out of nowhere towards the end of the first week of July to my memory.
Everything kind of flipped on its head very quickly in a matter of days.
Ultimately, both managers didn't get their preferred signings to my mind.
Oooh lovely, RC favorite term... straw man.
It's all subjective. If you like Klopp great, personally I can't bring myself to like him as he's at our oldest rival. Same for Pep tbh.
I think they are both great managers and to suggest otherwise would be silly, but liking them? Nah... Just can't.
Lukaku has poor first touch and technique and does not fit in our system, no one can deny that.
But he has always been prolific goalscorer too (scored 129 goals in England, and 52 goals for Belgium, and also 25 goals this season for Inter), lets not pretend he is shite and worthless.
Selling him is definitely a good decision for us, as we are playing far better attacking football without him, and our young forwards can all score comparable amount of goals, but also demonstrate with better skills and movement. But make no mistake, buying Lukaku is also a good decision from Inter, he has scored 25 goals for them afterall, its very successful signing for them, in terms of goal return.
But he has always been prolific goalscorer too (scored 129 goals in England, and 52 goals for Belgium, and also 25 goals this season for Inter), lets not pretend he is shite and worthless.
Selling him is definitely a good decision for us, as we are playing far better attacking football without him, and our young forwards can all score comparable amount of goals, but also demonstrate with better skills and movement. But make no mistake, buying Lukaku is also a good decision from Inter, he has scored 25 goals for them afterall, its very successful signing for them, in terms of goal return.
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I'm pretty certain Chelsea were never even linked to Morata until after we signed Lukaku. Maybe the odd bit of transfer rubbish, but there were no serious links. It looked for all the world like they were signing Lukaku and we would sign Morata. Then out of nowhere all the reports suddenly started saying we were signing Lukaku instead, we quickly pushed that through, and Chelsea had a couple of days of shock and getting linked to the likes of Morata and Aubameyang before deciding on Morata.
Team are playing well at the moment, but we haven't yet secured Champions League football next year. The break arguably came at a good time for us as it's allowed Pogba to return to fitness and field both him and Fernandes. We now have real quality behind our attacking trio.
It wasn't wrong to sell Lukaku though. For a big, physically imposing looking guy, his hold up play was awful and he was far too easily outmuscled. No way would we transition from defence to attack quickly with him leading the line.
We should, however, have got Fernandes in the summer and I hope that waiting until January doesn't cost us a CL place.
It wasn't wrong to sell Lukaku though. For a big, physically imposing looking guy, his hold up play was awful and he was far too easily outmuscled. No way would we transition from defence to attack quickly with him leading the line.
We should, however, have got Fernandes in the summer and I hope that waiting until January doesn't cost us a CL place.
There are some similarities. RVN was twice the player Lukaku is, though.
I think they meant it more along the lines of...”Do you support the manager or the club?”
Because for me, I support the club. I can appreciate liking Klopp. He’s quite likable. I liked him myself during his time in Germany. But as a United fan you have to accept that the manager that goes to City or Liverpool will never be able to come here. And while they are there, their achievements are only to the detriment of the club we support.
A sport without emotional fans; How tiresome it would be! I dread the day!
Exactly this. I loved RVN and was devastated to see him go but we were so much better going forward with fluid attackers who could play intricate passes and could create goals from nothing. We’re definitely seeing something similar here.
Our front 3 outscored liverpool's and still people are clamouring for a Donkey to be back, couldnt make it up.
One of the worse front men I've seen at united. Absolutely was brutal to watch, stunk the place out with his terrible touch and dramatics.
His interviews since leaving have showed what sort of player he was about the place so good riddance
One of the worse front men I've seen at united. Absolutely was brutal to watch, stunk the place out with his terrible touch and dramatics.
His interviews since leaving have showed what sort of player he was about the place so good riddance
I don't think that's true.
I thought it was a decision that had to be made that would impact us in the short term (this season) but be better for us in the long term.
In the end it was better in the short term as well as Rashford, Martial and Greenwood have stepped up fantastically. Martial is a far better fit for the 9 than Lukaku and Greenwood has already matched Lukaku's goal tally from last season in 1000 less minutes.
In the end it was better in the short term as well as Rashford, Martial and Greenwood have stepped up fantastically. Martial is a far better fit for the 9 than Lukaku and Greenwood has already matched Lukaku's goal tally from last season in 1000 less minutes.
In fairness one poster has said we would be higher up the table if we had kept him. I'm not sure how anyone could come to that conclusion.
A successful team could be built around Lukaku. Ole didn't fancy him, so he let him go and United have performed fairly well without him, but that doesn't make the Lukaku sale to Inter some kind of masterclass. Now if you get them to pay for Sanchez, that would represent a coup of sorts.
We rightly sold him. People say we should have got a back up sooner....I might have at the time. Can't remember, but in hindsight we can say it worked out fine. Lukakus future was not here. He was too unreliable a player. Now people might say we got lucky? Luck is a good trait to have. At the end of the day, Lukaku was not for us.
I strongly disagree. A team will never be a contender for the league in PL with Lukaku being the main man on top. He ain’t good enough. At all.
I think the most glowing praise of him is simply saying he does score goals, outside of that its wide spread condemnation of being pretty crap at everything else.
That's different from wanting to buy him back though. It's more a criticism about not replacing him than selling him. I just thought that there is no need to twist what people are saying
Saying we’d have been better off not selling him? Semantics really