Focus on Lukaku’s form deflects from a broken system at Old Trafford
AROUND eight minutes into Manchester United’s 1-0 defeat to Juventus on Tuesday night, Paul Pogba sent a hopeful long ball into the right channel for Romelu Lukaku to chase.
As the ball bounced, Lukaku tried to bring it under control, took a heavy touch, almost ran it out of play, retrieved it, and then sent in a cross that skewed off the outside of his boot and ended up nearer the halfway line than the Juventus goal.
If ever there was a moment when Lukaku realised it probably wasn’t going to be his night, this was surely it.
As United slipped to an anaemic defeat on home turf, their main attacking threat enjoyed what the old pros occasionally call a fresh-air game. Goals: none. Shots on target: none. Shots off target: none. Assists: none. Chances created: none. Tackles: none. Interceptions: none. Fouls committed: none. Fouls suffered: none. Offsides: one.
Lukaku didn’t feature in any of United’s top 30 combinations, receiving just two passes each from Juan Mata and Marcus Rashford, the same number as he received from David De Gea.
It’s not so much that he isn’t scoring, even though he isn’t. This is, after all, a player who has always been susceptible to hot and cold streaks. He began his United career last season with 16 goals in 13 games for club and country, which he then followed with one in 12. He began this season with six in four, and now has none in eight. The goals, the confidence and the aura that his manager Jose Mourinho once claimed made him a £150m player will surely return before long.
But that’s not the part United need to worry about.
Ahead of the Juventus game, Lukaku offered an interesting explanation of his fitful club form, which contrasts strikingly with his consistency for Belgium.
“Here, I still think the team- work between myself and my teammates can be much better,” he said.
“The players need to know me and know my movement. When that starts clicking, I think the results I have with Belgium will also come here.”
The thing is, Lukaku has played 64 games for United. For most of that period, he’s played with the same few players around him. That is, in short, one hell of a bedding-in period.
It was telling to hear Mourinho’s analysis of Lukaku’s malaise.
“I have to agree his moment is not sweet,” he said. “Not just with the goals he is not scoring, but in his confidence, movement, touch. He is not linking the game well with the team. But Romelu is a hard-working guy and a good professional. One day the goals will arrive and the confidence will be back.”
The United boss mused aloud about replacing Lukaku with Rashford for Sunday’s game against Everton, before doubling back on himself because it would leave him without options on the wing.
What’s missing here is a blueprint, a trajectory, any sort of wider strategy, any indication that Mourinho is thinking beyond the next 90 minutes, never mind the next few years. How should Manchester United be playing football in 2018? How will they be scoring their goals in 2020? How is it possible that a club of this size and weight doesn’t have the faintest idea?
Are United genuinely set on evolving and developing their front line? Are they exploring alternatives to Lukaku, or enabling his development as a player? Or will they simply carry on doing things as they are now: putting the house on Lukaku, taking his 20 goals a season, bringing on Marouane Fellaini if they still need a goal after 70 minutes, continuing to be quite good without ever threatening to be great?
Over the next few months, the answers to these questions will give us a good idea of how United see themselves.