I think quite a few at Manchester United had a point to prove against Chelsea last weekend; Nemanja Matic, Paul Pogba and Jose Mourinho to name a few and I believe they were all happy with the valuable win.

Striker Romelu Lukaku possibly had the biggest issues to overcome as some believed he still had question marks regarding his ability to lead the line for one of the biggest clubs in the world.

He hadn’t scored against any of the Premier League’s top eight clubs so far this season and his record against former side Chelsea was particularly poor.

The Belgian striker just didn’t seem to be as fast, as powerful or as clinical as he was with Everton in previous seasons.

In fairness to the hitman he has been asked to do a different role at Old Trafford. He has been asked to be more of a focal point and dare I say it a target-man. That role isn’t as geared towards goals as being an all out centre forward is but it can create chances for others and it can intimidate defences.

Lukaku has become better at holding up the ball and bringing players into the game in attacking areas.

But without doubt his scoring exploits suffered and he hasn’t always looked confident in front of goal this term. People will always question a £75m forward who doesn’t grab the goals, especially in the bigger games.

Going into this one, the pressure on Lukaku was building but the international managed to come up with the big moments when it really mattered.

He scored the vital equaliser which brought United level with their opponents before half-time. He was involved in the build-up along with fellow forwards Anthony Martial and Alexis Sanchez. His finish was calm and collected.

His second major influence was his great cross from the right that was met and headed in by substitute Jesse Lingard.

A goal and an assist in a win against another top four side answered a lot of the questions that surrounded him before the game.

Yet his overall performance also deserves a mention.

He started sluggishly and the ball just wasn’t sticking to him but he didn’t stop showing for the ball. It was also noticeable that he started to move into the channels more and that allowed him to run with the ball and he excelled at that at Everton. It allowed Sanchez or Martial to enter the space in the middle that Romelu had vacated, that could be an ideal tactic for the rest of the season.

His desire to keep running down opponents and keeping the ball in the opposition’s half was great for his team’s cause.

Now that Romelu Lukaku has shown us that he can show up against the top sides, then he needs to do it on a regular basis and to be honest I believe he’ll just go from strength to strength.

Posted on February 27th, 2018 by scott
Filed under: Article