Rom may be a new Ron at Old Trafford
TEN games into Cristiano Ronaldo’s defining season at United, he’d scored four goals.
Over the same period in Romelu Lukaku’s debut campaign at Old Trafford, he has 10.
So spectacular has the Belgian’s start at United been that comparisons with Ronaldo’s time at the club don’t do it justice.
Rather, Lukaku is scoring at a rate more akin to those of Ronaldo and Lionel Messi in La Liga.
These are early days, but the £75m striker is threatening to reach those realms.
For the record, in six games this season Ronaldo has scored five times. Lukaku had scored six by that point.
When, or if, United’s latest No.9 leads them to the Champions League or three successive Premier League titles, truer comparisons can be made.
But in only a matter of weeks at the club Lukaku is setting new standards. And becoming the first United striker to score 40 goals in a campaign since Ronaldo looks an attainable target.
Notably, he is altering perceptions. It’s time to stop considering him a flat track bully - rather just a bully, full stop.
In the manner of the game’s best strikers - Ronaldo included.
For instance, in the 2008-9 campaign the Portuguese scored five goals in two games against relegated Newcastle.
This season he’s scored a hat-trick against the Faroe Islands for his country and another two against Greek minnows Apoel Nicosia.
Look at the records of any prolific goal-scorer and there will be the equivalent. For Lukaku, however, it has become an easy stick with which to beat him.
Not that it put off Jose Mourinho from making him potentially the most expensive player in United’s history, with his fee rising to £90m with add-ons. Considering those unspecified add-ons were described as very ‘achievable,’ Ed Woodward might as well write the cheque now.
United’s executive vice chairman has spent his tenure in charge of the club’s transfer policy desperate to bring Ronaldo to the club.
He may well have secured his own version in an unlikely figure.
Lukaku may never be blessed with the skills of the four-time Ballon d’Or winner - he was never expected to. But if he can continue to score at such a rate, he will provide United with kind of cutting edge they have lacked ever since Ronaldo’s departure in 2009.
And there is a beauty in his art of its own.
For every handful of goals there will be the glaring miss.
He struck twice against CSKA Moscow, yet his first touch when running through on goal in the second half ricocheted so wildly it looked more like a raking crossfield pass than a piece of control.
But it is the relentlessness in his approach - his single-mindedness - that makes him such a threat.
The number of rebounds he converts - including goals against CSKA and Southampton - point to that insatiable hunger. Ronaldo has that too. His genius is to combine that power and focus with the technical ability that has made him a player of historical significance.
Lukaku is not the same - and nor does he need to be.
He just needs to keep on doing what he’s doing.