It’s Shear madness that Lukaku does not get the same respect as Kane
HOW often do you hear talk about the possibility of Romelu Lukaku breaking Alan Shearer’s Premier League goalscoring record?
How often do you hear talk about the possibility of Harry Kane breaking Alan Shearer’s Premier League goal-scoring record?
The answers are: hardly ever and every other day.
Yet the Manchester United striker – on a mark of 98 – has just four fewer Premier League goals than Kane and is only two months his senior.
Considering the respective spending powers of their clubs, sensible money should perhaps be on Lukaku to surpass Shearer first, but Kane’s reputation as the Premier League’s outstanding striker is rarely challenged.
Considering his scoring statistics, specifically in terms of goals per minute, understandably so.
Over the past four seasons, he has scored at a superior rate not just to Lukaku, but to any other Premier League striker (but only marginally better than Sergio Aguero, incidentally).
That is why he might well get to Shearer’s tally ahead of anyone else.
Lukaku will run him close, but is unlikely to get the credit he deserves in the process and, considering his consistency since making his Premier League debut way back in August of 2011, that is slightly bizarre.
The standard criticism of Lukaku is the flat-track bully theory – and it has some substance.
Lukaku, though, spent a season at West Brom and three at Everton. As a rule, those teams did not get a great deal of attacking joy against the big teams.
His strike against Chelsea last Sunday was his first for United against a team currently in the top eight, but the way Jose Mourinho sets up in contests against the elite hardly helps Lukaku’s scoring cause. Had he scored at Anfield in the fixture earlier this season, for example, it would have been a minor miracle. In his assessment of Lukaku, it is almost as if Mourinho makes an allowance for his own cautious style. “I have other points of analysis and I’m happy with Romelu’s performances, even when he doesn’t score goals,” says the Reds boss.
Among those other points of analysis will be the number of assists Lukaku contributes.
His one for Jesse Lingard’s winning header against Chelsea took his total to six in the Premier League this season and to 40 in his career.
Kane has only one assist this season and 16 in his career.
Ratio-wise, Lukaku and the Spurs star’s international records are very similar, the Belgian scoring 31 times in 65 appearances and Kane 12 in 23.
Because he started so early and has made well over 200 Premier League appearances, it is easy to forget Lukaku, who does not turn 25 until May, is still a work in progress. Regular Champions League football will help him develop his game. Lukaku will continue to divide opinion in a way that Kane does not, but, at £75million, United got an absolute snip.
He also happens to be engaging company when he talks, as he did after his man-ofthe-match performance against Chelsea.
“I have been doing it for 10 years straight, so I think I have proved myself,” he said. “You expect a bit more respect.”
And Romelu Lukaku deserves it.