In September, Romelu Lukaku scored two against Burnley, three across the international break, and another on the return against Watford which made it six goals in 14 days. But outside of those 14 days, he’s scored just once all season.
His 2.48 shots per 90 minutes average is nothing stellar but healthy enough, but these shots have tended to be decent-quality chances. In fact, out of players who’ve taken ten or more shots, his have the fifth-best expected goals value in the league, on average. This means that he’s getting chances worth 0.55 expected goals per 90 minutes – basically the old ‘one in two’ record. The problem comes from the fact that his shot-taking is almost as concentrated as his goal-getting.
Lukaku got more expected goals under his belt from the match against Burnley alone than the rest of his seven appearances in the Premier League put together (2.08 vs 1.91). If you take out that Burnley match, then, Lukaku’s expected goals per 90 minutes rate goes down to 0.3, down among players like Mateo Kovačić, Cenk Tosun and Alexandre Lacazette.
At this level, a club like United would be hoping that the striker could do something else for the team to make up for the lack of goalscoring threat. This isn’t really something Lukaku does.
Choosing alternatives is another problem. Neither Marcus Rashford nor Anthony Martial have much experience in leading a line. Alexis Sanchez is a name that’s been proposed, and the Chilean won praise from Lukaku himself after the Newcastle game.
However, the wide forward roles in Mourinho’s 4-3-3 at United have tended to operate as more creative players, rather than being out-and-out strikers, which might mean that it would be best to keep Sánchez on the left. In this case, it would be between Rashford and Martial to fight it out for Lukaku’s spot.
Should Lukaku be benched for a few games?
