Do we need Lukaku to score 30+ goals?

NinjaFletch said:
I find the logic here strange.

The analysis that a team who are incredibly reliant on one player is a bad thing and that an overly selfish striker might limit an attack are both fair points, but it's ridiculous to quantify those points in terms of goal stats.

Lets agree for the sake of argument that Lukaku is an overly selfish striker who inhibits the productivity of his teammates. How in any way is it better for him to do that and have a poor goal scoring season than to do that and have a great goal scoring season?

There is a valid concern being hinted at in the OP, but Lukaku having a poor goalscoring season (or even just an average one) won't stop him from being a disruptive influence (if he is indeed one), it will just me that it's even more of a problem.



On the other hand he will have to deal with the expectations of United and learn to cope with teams that sit back and deny space in the final third. Everton, are involved in more open games than United are over the course of a season by several orders of magnitude.

That's not to say he won't make the step up, but he does have to make adjustments, it is not all plain sailing.
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I have confidence he will get in the 30s. He is surrounded by better players and is just now entering his prime. Not a difficult task given the amount of CL games he'll play in.
 
Raoul said:
I have confidence he will get in the 30s. He is surrounded by better players and is just now entering his prime. Not a difficult task given the amount of CL games he'll play in.
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I hope so, unlike Brwned I think we desperately need him to.
 
I would rather Lukaku, Rashford, and Martial scored 15 each instead of Lukaku scoring 30 and everyone else repeating last season's form. Lukaku will envitably suffer the Utd injury curse at some point this season and we can't go back to not scoring again.
 
Crashoutcassius said:
If mourinho diesn't step up and perform better as a manager then we won't do well. We have the players to challenge for a title, lukaku mhikitarian pogba herrera mata martial are good enough. Our defence is excellent. Just need Mourinho to do well enough now.
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Mourinho cannot be blamed for last year, when our attackers could not put the ball in the back of the net.
Before Ibra got injured, he set our team us to create many chances. The players just could not finish. I remember Mata could not score from about 1 foot away from the goal mouth....which is pretty pathetic.
All our attackers need to improve their finishing.
 
Yes we do and I disagree with the idea that a top goalscorer isn't best for the team. Ultimately you can say it's better to spread goals among other players but the reality is that we simply need more goals regardless of whether or not they're spread among more players. Ideally you would want a mix of a 30 goal striker and also a decent return of 10-15 goals from 2-3 others in the squad. The logic doesn't hold up when considering our top scorers and our league positions at the end of the season.

Since the Premier League's first season these are the most goals scored by a Utd player each season and where we finished in the league:
2007-8, 31 goals (Ronaldo), 1st
2011-12, 27 goals (Rooney), 2nd
2012-13, 26 goals (van Persie), 1st
2009-10, 26 goals (Rooney), 2nd
2002-3, 25 goals (van Nistlerooy), 1st
2001-2, 23 goals (van Nistlerooy), 3rd
2005-6, 21 goals (van Nistlerooy), 2nd
1999-2000, 20 goals (Yorke), 1st
2010-11, 20 goals (Berbatov), 1st
2003-4, 20 goals (van Nistlerooy), 3rd
1993-4, 18 goals (Cantona), 1st
1996-7, 18 goals (Solskjaer), 1st
1998-9, 18 goals (Yorke), 1st
2008-9, 18 goals (Ronaldo), 1st
2006-7, 17 goals (Ronaldo), 1st
2016-17, 17 goals (Ibrahimovic), 6th
2013-14, 17 goals (Rooney), 7th
1992-3, 15 goals (Hughes), 1st
2000-1, 15 goals (Sheringham), 1st
1997-8, 15 goals (Cole), 2nd
1995-6, 14 goals (Cantona), 1st
1994-5, 14 goals (Kanchelskis), 2nd
2014-15, 12 goals (Rooney), 4th
2004-5, 11 goals (Rooney), 3rd
2015-16, 11 goals (Martial), 5th

With the exception of van Nistlerooy, who you can probably just put down to being in an unfortunate period for the club, it's pretty clear that in general the more goals our top scorer got the more success we generally enjoyed. While you can point to Rooney, it's worth pointing out that in 2009-10 Drogba scored even more goals than Wayne (29) which could be used to explain Chelsea's win that season. The 2011-12 season is probably the best example for your argument as Rooney scored more than Aguero did for City (though Aguero still got 23) and Ferguson pretty much stated that the lack of goals aside from Wayne was the reason we didn't win the league that season, which is why he went and got the top scorer from that season, van Persie. Take out those outliers and it's pretty clear that there's generally less success associated with our top striker scoring less than 18 goals. I know you were talking about total goals scored but judging success by solely looking at the Premier League table is easier than deciding how well we did in the CL and other cups. So ideally, if we want to have any chance at winning the league, Lukaku should probably be scoring at least 18 league goals since we've only won the league 4 out of the 11 times our top scorer got below 18 goals (36% win rate), compared to the 9 wins out of 14 seasons where our striker scored 18+ goals (64% win rate).
 
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I expect Lukaku to score most of our goals, but they need to spread around the team more. That was our problem last season. Too reliant on Ibra, and when he didn't produce, we looked pretty toothless.

I expect Pogba, Mkhitaryan and Rashford to chip in with more goals this oncoming season.
 
Brwned said:
.In every other great season under Sir Alex, it was the 2nd top scorer scoring 20+ goals that made the difference - Hughes in 93/94, Cole in 98/99, Rooney in 08/09, Hernández in 10/11.
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So the key whether we have successful season depends for the 2nd and 3rd goal scorers I.e Rashford and Martial who each has to score 15-20 goals next season regardless of how Lukaku fare.
 
We need him to do high 20s at the least in all competitions and at least 23ish in the prem.


I predict mikhi will get near 20 if not that this season (god forbid an injury). Rashford may also step up and score near 20, if Martial hits form he should get comfortably near that as well.


But your correct we shouldnt aim to have one player who scores 35 goals in all competitions and the rest of the attack be sitting on 20 combined.
 
shabadu84 said:
64, 62, 49, 54 - our league's goals post Fergie. We need more goals, period.
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That's absolutely fecking desperate. Moyes our has our best goal tally post Fergie :lol: :wenger:

Edit: Actually I guess his is like 58 or so really but still...
 
Dazzmondo said:
Yes we do and I disagree with the idea that a top goalscorer isn't best for the team. Ultimately you can say it's better to spread goals among other players but the reality is that we simply need more goals regardless of whether or not they're spread among more players. Ideally you would want a mix of a 30 goal striker and also a decent return of 10-15 goals from 2-3 others in the squad. The logic doesn't hold up when considering our top scorers and our league positions at the end of the season.

Since the Premier League's first season these are the most goals scored by a Utd player each season and where we finished in the league:
2007-8, 31 goals (Ronaldo), 1st
2011-12, 27 goals (Rooney), 2nd
2012-13, 26 goals (van Persie), 1st
2009-10, 26 goals (Rooney), 2nd
2002-3, 25 goals (van Nistlerooy), 1st
2001-2, 23 goals (van Nistlerooy), 3rd
2005-6, 21 goals (van Nistlerooy), 2nd
1999-2000, 20 goals (Yorke), 1st
2010-11, 20 goals (Berbatov), 1st
2003-4, 20 goals (van Nistlerooy), 3rd
1993-4, 18 goals (Cantona), 1st
1996-7, 18 goals (Solskjaer), 1st
1998-9, 18 goals (Yorke), 1st
2008-9, 18 goals (Ronaldo), 1st
2006-7, 17 goals (Ronaldo), 1st
2016-17, 17 goals (Ibrahimovic), 6th
2013-14, 17 goals (Rooney), 7th
1992-3, 15 goals (Hughes), 1st
2000-1, 15 goals (Sheringham), 1st
1997-8, 15 goals (Cole), 2nd
1995-6, 14 goals (Cantona), 1st
1994-5, 14 goals (Kanchelskis), 2nd
2014-15, 12 goals (Rooney), 4th
2004-5, 11 goals (Rooney), 3rd
2015-16, 11 goals (Martial), 5th

With the exception of van Nistlerooy, who you can probably just put down to being in an unfortunate period for the club, it's pretty clear that in general the more goals our top scorer got the more success we generally enjoyed. While you can point to Rooney, it's worth pointing out that in 2009-10 Drogba scored even more goals than Wayne (29) which could be used to explain Chelsea's win that season. The 2011-12 season is probably the best example for your argument as Rooney scored more than Aguero did for City (though Aguero still got 23) and Ferguson pretty much stated that the lack of goals aside from Wayne was the reason we didn't win the league that season, which is why he went and got the top scorer from that season, van Persie. Take out those outliers and it's pretty clear that there's generally less success associated with our top striker scoring less than 18 goals. I know you were talking about total goals scored but judging success by solely looking at the Premier League table is easier than deciding how well we did in the CL and other cups. So ideally, if we want to have any chance at winning the league, Lukaku should probably be scoring at least 18 league goals since we've only won the league 4 out of the 11 times our top scorer got below 18 goals (36% win rate), compared to the 9 wins out of 14 seasons where our striker scored 18+ goals (64% win rate).
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That's not what your figures say. What they say is the sweet spot is around 16-20 goals...which is exactly in line with what I've said. If you break them out into batches - 11-15, 16-20, 21+ you can see that more clearly.
2007-8, 31 goals (Ronaldo), 1st
2011-12, 27 goals (Rooney), 2nd
2012-13, 26 goals (van Persie), 1st
2009-10, 26 goals (Rooney), 2nd
2002-3, 25 goals (van Nistlerooy), 1st
2001-2, 23 goals (van Nistlerooy), 3rd
2005-6, 21 goals (van Nistlerooy), 2nd
21+ goals = 3/6 title wins, 50% success rate

1999-2000, 20 goals (Yorke), 1st
2010-11, 20 goals (Berbatov), 1st
2003-4, 20 goals (van Nistlerooy), 3rd
1993-4, 18 goals (Cantona), 1st
1996-7, 18 goals (Solskjaer), 1st
1998-9, 18 goals (Yorke), 1st
2008-9, 18 goals (Ronaldo), 1st
2006-7, 17 goals (Ronaldo), 1st
2016-17, 17 goals (Ibrahimovic), 6th
2013-14, 17 goals (Rooney), 7th
16-20 goals = 7/10 title wins, 70% success rate

1992-3, 15 goals (Hughes), 1st
2000-1, 15 goals (Sheringham), 1st
1997-8, 15 goals (Cole), 2nd
1995-6, 14 goals (Cantona), 1st
1994-5, 14 goals (Kanchelskis), 2nd
2014-15, 12 goals (Rooney), 4th
2004-5, 11 goals (Rooney), 3rd
2015-16, 11 goals (Martial), 5th
11-15 goals = 3/8 title wins, 38% success rate

If you add in European and FA Cup success you'll see that the majority of our success in those competitions has come when our top scorer's scored 16-20 goals. We've reached the European couple final 4 times in this period, and 3 of them have been in seasons when our top scorer has scored 16-20 goals. We've won the double twice in our history and in one season it came when our top scorer scored 16-20 goals, another when he scored 11-15. We won the treble once and it came when our top scorer scored 16-20 goals.

It's not like we're looking at the figures selectively either. It's looking at the most successful period in the history of England's most successful club, 25 seasons in total, and grouping them by their top goalscorer overall or their top goalscorer in the league. If you look at it either way, as you've demonstrated, it's pretty clear that having an incredible goalscorer doesn't propel you to success.

rpg said:
So the key whether we have successful season depends for the 2nd and 3rd goal scorers I.e Rashford and Martial who each has to score 15-20 goals next season regardless of how Lukaku fare.
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That's not the key, no - I'd argue defence is more important than attack, and there's all sorts of intangible factors that you can't really account for e.g. if you look at United, Bayern and Barcelona's trebles, they all came after an unsuccessful season that created the hunger to win everything the following year. Many Bayern fans have said losing on penalties to Chelsea is what gave them the focus, determination and motivation to perform the way they did the following year.

However if we're just zooming in on the attack then absolutely, I'd say it's more important to have two 20+ goalscorers than it is to have one 30+ goalscorer - the evidence supports that and the logic is pretty straightforward. If your main goalscorer is causing the team to be so one dimensional that your next best goalscorer can barely get a sniff, then you're going to be pretty easy to nullify in the major games. That's what happened with Rooney, van Persie or van Nistelrooy.

I'm just suggesting we don't want the same to happen with Lukaku. If he can score bucketloads without making our team one dimensional, that's great, but history suggests it's difficult to balance those two up. It's much easier to find the balance with an upper mid-range goalscorer who provides more to the team than just goals.
 
If he doesn't score 50+ goals, we're shipping him back to Everton and getting Rooney back.

You lot are fynny. I'd say he score ad many as he can and then some. I'd be pissed if he doesn't do 30 minimum.
 
The posters who are reasoning along the lines of "Zlatan got 17....even if Lukaku gets 25 that is still only 8 more" are forgetting about the impact a player can have in creating space and opportunities for those around them

If you think back to WBA, Hull, Burnley, Stoke, West Ham (I could go on!) last season, they literally played the whole game in their own penalty box. We scored two goals in the home fixtures - that is dreadful

I am sure what Lukaku will provide is a proper presence in the penalty area. Even if he doesnt get the goal, his power and movement will likely open space dor others

Then everyone knows once you break the resistance of these teams you often win the game 3/4-0 and it looks like a great day at the office
 
I expect Lukaku's presence will help others score more. Ibrahimovic was so slow and static it was very easy for defenders to mark him and everyone else. It was his individual brilliance that allowed him to get goals. Lukaku will be dragging defenders all over the place, allowing others to find space to score from.
 
We as a team need to score WAY more goals.

We've not come close to 70 goals since Fergie retired and we routinely hit 80+ under his reign. Prem title winners are usually 1st or 2nd in goals scored.

Lukaku will score 20+ goals. We need the others to contribute.
 
Sandikan said:
Unless we create a system that has Rashford up front with Lukaku regularly, there's no way he'll get near to 20!
Unless you think he'll go nuts in the cup run outs.
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I think Rashford got 11 or 12 goals last season in a season where everything was for the most part a slow system with Zlatan and at the start Rooney both in the team, with a much more fluid and pacey team this year there's no reason we won't see a much better goal return from Rashford in my opinion.

Lukaku likes to drift out to the flanks which creates a lot of space in field for the wide forwards Rashford and Martial and also attacking midfielders like Mkhitaryan, Mata and Pogba whereas last season it was different due to Zlatan being very central and nowhere near being a quick player.

An example would be to look at how we were as a team with Saha years ago instead of RVN as even though RVN was by far the better striker and goal scorer Saha playing brought out the best in the exact same players due to his style over that of RVN, Zlatan is/was a better striker and player than Lukaku BUT Zlatan's style of play may not have been as good for others around him to thrive.
 
We've got a lot of goal scorers in this team. I don't think we will have a season like last season where the team seemed to have a mental block. I fully expect Rashford, Mata, Martial and Mickey to do better.
 
sunama said:
Mourinho cannot be blamed for last year, when our attackers could not put the ball in the back of the net.
Before Ibra got injured, he set our team us to create many chances. The players just could not finish. I remember Mata could not score from about 1 foot away from the goal mouth....which is pretty pathetic.
All our attackers need to improve their finishing.
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disagree totally, mourinho is our manager and achieved our worst finish in however many years, he has to take some of that blame plain and simple. If he didn't have players that could finish then he needed to sign them. If you're really saying that it was all some spooky coincidence that suddenly these players couldn't finish and mourinho got us to our lowest finish in x years out of this highly unlikely coincidence then fair enough, I guess we don't need to do anything this summer except let that bad luck even out (which is unquestionably has to in the long run)
 
Lukaku is fine. I think we need better players in the three behind Lukaku. Rashford, Martial, Mata, Lingard - these are not quite good enough for a title charge in those roles. Mkhitaryan can be on his day but he's very inconsistent- a confidence player so we need others to step up when he's not firing.
 
shabadu84 said:
Yes kind of hard to believe but we had RVP, di Maria, Falcao, etc. And we were fighting for 4th all the way until the end that year.
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True, though Falcao only scored about 3 goals or something :p
What I find more amazing is that Jose only managed 5 more goals than LVG's 2nd season, the mind numbingly boring season. Yet our football was good at times under Jose. Goes to show how bad our finishing was.
 
We had an awful season last year in terms of how many team goals we scored.

I think that will definitely improve this year as the players fully adapt to Mourinhos style. Lukaku's goals will be a welcome boost though.
 
Crashoutcassius said:
disagree totally, mourinho is our manager and achieved our worst finish in however many years, he has to take some of that blame plain and simple. If he didn't have players that could finish then he needed to sign them.
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He couild've signed someone in January, but he wanted to give a chance to our terrible finishers to redeem themselves. This was the right thing to do.
Unfortunately, our attackers continued to be poor at their job.

Crashoutcassius said:
If you're really saying that it was all some spooky coincidence that suddenly these players couldn't finish and mourinho got us to our lowest finish in x years out of this highly unlikely coincidence then fair enough, I guess we don't need to do anything this summer except let that bad luck even out (which is unquestionably has to in the long run)
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Why our player could not finish...I don't k now. It shall remain a mystery.
But if I was the manager, I would already be looking to replace the attackers who are poor at their jobs. << this happens in all professions, not just football.
I do worry that Jose has not actually done anything about our attacking personnel. He has replaced Ibra with Lukaku, which is a like for like replacement. The rest of our non-scoring attackers remain in place. So, Jose is hoping that they improve their finishing ability by 50%+....which I find difficult to believe is possible.
 
Brwned said:
However if we're just zooming in on the attack then absolutely, I'd say it's more important to have two 20+ goalscorers than it is to have one 30+ goalscorer - the evidence supports that and the logic is pretty straightforward. If your main goalscorer is causing the team to be so one dimensional that your next best goalscorer can barely get a sniff, then you're going to be pretty easy to nullify in the major games. That's what happened with Rooney, van Persie or van Nistelrooy.
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I think this is the main point. It's not that having a supreme goalscorer is problem it is lacking variety in attack - Ideally you want at least two good goalscorers in your team. If we would have bought Ronaldinho to play behind Ruud I doubt Ruud's goalscoring figures would have dropped. . Rather they would probably increased and Dinho would have scored 15+ league goals a season. If we play 433 we need Mikitaryan (assuming he's played as the narrow right forward to score 15 goals a season and Pogba to chip in 10 league goals.
 
Lukaku can score a lot and he probably will go for the golden boot. But everything cannot be lumped onto his shoulders. The other forwards/attackers need to get their lazy bums in gear, produce the numbers and earn their fat contracts.
 
whatwha said:
True, though Falcao only scored about 3 goals or something :p
What I find more amazing is that Jose only managed 5 more goals than LVG's 2nd season, the mind numbingly boring season. Yet our football was good at times under Jose. Goes to show how bad our finishing was.
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Correct, I lost count of the number of matches we finished with 0 or 1 goal that we should have scored several more in.
 
I expect him to score at least 20-25 goals in league, and 30-35+ goals in all competition..

Afterall, he is a striker which worth 80m and I don't think its asking too much for it
 
Addicting ourselves to one man savior type striker like we did with Zlatan can be bit treacherous, but luckily Lukaku knows Premier League better even than Ibra, so expect goals but also expect goals from other outlets in this team.
 
Other players chipping in more would be easier if we had a more settled team. Under Fergie, the regulars all knew who they were to a large extent, at least in the midfield.

That group we have of Martial, Rashford, Mkhitaryan, Mata and Lingard must feel as if there names are drawn from a hat from game to game. I'm not sure Hose knows what his best or favoured team is, at least not in that area.

Looking at our rivals who have supporting players scoring big numbers - the likes of KDB, Hazard, Sanchez, Pedro, Alli all work under different conditions. I think we may have too many options in a way here, which is due to non strategic spending in a period where we were a bit lost.

Our 'forwards' are over rotated, and all generally seem to be offering the same kind of output. I'd like to see Martial and Mkhitaryan given a real go in the team this year, and if they don't deliver, sell them if you want, but those are the best two and need stability.
 
25 across all competitions would be my aim, 30 if we go on good cup runs.

What we sorely need is for the others to up their output. More goals from the wing (both sides), more from Rashford/sub strikers, and certainly more goals from midfield. If there was a contribution of just 5 more goals from each of those areas, it would be a drastic difference.
 
I really don't understand this thread. Yes the performance of the whole team matters, but the more a striker scores the better you'd expect the team to be.
 
Ronaldo's Mum Eh? said:
I really don't understand this thread. Yes the performance of the whole team matters, but the more a striker scores the better you'd expect the team to be.
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Not really.
If you had a striker scoring 25 goals a season and no other player getting more than 1 or 2 you'd not be fareing very well.

Lukaku doesn't need to hit 30, but he is capable, and it would be great if he did, but what's most important is that everyone else steps up to the plate and fulfills their quota too.
 
You need more players in your team to score 10+ goals - Lukaku will do well (and I expect him to score 20+ goals) but unless you have others pitching in fairly regularly with goals it wont mean much. Same situation that occured with Zlatan last season tbh.
 
ivaldo said:
We've got a lot of goal scorers in this team. I don't think we will have a season like last season where the team seemed to have a mental block. I fully expect Rashford, Mata, Martial and Mickey to do better.
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This is the key to our success - forget Lukaku for now, we need some of those under-performing/ maturing players to deliver. Even the likes of Pogba and Lingard should be aiming for 10+ goals this season.
 
Lukaku may very well get the golden boot. After all, he was close to it last year until Kane scored a bunch at the end. Logical to believe with the players we have around him and being a better, more attacking side than Everton he can achieve this.

If Martial repeats (and builds on) his form from his debut season, Mhktaryan becomes the player we bought and Rashford keeps improving then we are in a much better position than the negative Nancy's believe. A lot of "if's", but let's face it - it's more likely than unlikely given the talent of the players and the manager.
 
Inter Yer Nan said:
Lukaku may very well get the golden boot. After all, he was close to it last year until Kane scored a bunch at the end. Logical to believe with the players we have around him and being a better, more attacking side than Everton he can achieve this.

If Martial repeats (and builds on) his form from his debut season, Mhktaryan becomes the player we bought and Rashford keeps improving then we are in a much better position than the negative Nancy's believe. A lot of "if's", but let's face it - it's more likely than unlikely given the talent of the players and the manager.
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You realise Everton scored more goals last season than Utd right?
 
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