Romelu Lukaku

[Khalekan]

True story mate. One of Rooneys family told my grandad Newcastle came in with a offer we couldn't refuse. United matched it (maybe a little less) but Rooney chose United over the Toon. United knew this hence the structured payments we had to accept (I use the term had to loosely).

At that particular time Paul Stretford and Freddie Shepard were big pals and in fact Stretford kept an office ar St. James's Park.

Manchester United had apparently made a "gentleman's agreement" with Everton that they would not make a move on Rooney before a certain date.....unless another team made a bid.

It was commonly believed at the time that Stretford had Shepard make a bid on Newcastle's behalf, a bid which was never in danger of being accepted, so as Ferguson could launch the real bid to take him to Old Trafford and keep within the bounds, but not the spirit, of the pact with Everton.

 

[Old Blue 2]

That's the solution lads.

We need a striker who scores less goals!

Jesus fkng hell.

No, you are completely wrong in what you say when quoting me!

The point I am making is that it can be dangerous to invest all of your goalscoring capability in one player. To focus everything/direct everything, towards one player. That's what happened in '85-'86. I was there. I saw it. And when push came to shove, there was nothing else. That's why we fell at the last hurdle in both the league AND the FA Cup.

Notwithstanding having a great goalscorer leading the line, we also need the goals to come regularly from other areas. The danger is having too much reliance on Lukaku. Others have stated on this forum that without his goals in the last couple of seasons, we would have potentially been in relegation trouble. The goalscoring burden needs to be spread to others in the team - that's the point I'm making.

 

[Khalekan]

To focus everything/direct everything, towards one player. That's what happened in '85-'86. I was there. I saw it. And when push came to shove, there was nothing else. That's why we fell at the last hurdle in both the league AND the FA Cup.

Notwithstanding having a great goalscorer leading the line, we also need the goals to come regularly from other areas. The danger is having too much reliance on Lukaku. Others have stated on this forum that without his goals in the last couple of seasons, we would have potentially been in relegation trouble. The goalscoring burden needs to be spread to others in the team - that's the point I'm making.

Are you still at this?

We did not lose the title in '86 because Lineker scored 30 goals.

Contrary to what you like to think the goal scoring burden was shared around......Sharpie scored 19 league goals that season FCOL.

Adrian Heath scored 10.

That is a whopping 59 goals from our three strikers.

And Trevor Steven weighed in with plenty as well.

That was a far better team than the one which lifted the title twelve months later......and it scored a lot more goals.

We lost the league that season because the RS won about ten or twelve games in a row after we beat them.

We did very little wrong.

On top of that we lost Neville for the last two months of the season.....if he had not been injured playing for Wales on a rugby pitch there is little doubt he alone would have seen us over the line (not that Bobby Mimms did much wrong, he just wasn't Neville).

Lineker actually scored to give us the lead at Wembley....it wasn't his fault we gifted them a goal to get back in the game.

And we won it in '87 for the exact opposite reason.....the RS were well clear but they collapsed on the run in and we put together a splendid run.

The situation with Lukaku is totally different.

There literally is very few goals coming from any other source.

And indeed that is a very bad situation.

 

[BlueToff]

Are you still at this?

We did not lose the title in '86 because Lineker scored 30 goals.

Contrary to what you like to think the goal scoring burden was shared around......Sharpie scored 19 league goals that season FCOL.

Adrian Heath scored 10.

That is a whopping 59 goals from our three strikers.

And Trevor Steven weighed in with plenty as well.

That was a far better team than the one which lifted the title twelve months later......and it scored a lot more goals.

We lost the league that season because the RS won about ten or twelve games in a row after we beat them.

We did very little wrong.

On top of that we lost Neville for the last two months of the season.....if he had not been injured playing for Wales on a rugby pitch there is little doubt he alone would have seen us over the line (not that Bobby Mimms did much wrong, he just wasn't Neville).

Lineker actually scored to give us the lead at Wembley....it wasn't his fault we gifted them a goal to get back in the game.

And we won it in '87 for the exact opposite reason.....the RS were well clear but they collapsed on the run in and we put together a splendid run.

The situation with Lukaku is totally different.

There literally is very few goals coming from any other source.

And indeed that is a very bad situation.

We definitely need another goalscorer

 

[Raino85]

No, you are completely wrong in what you say when quoting me!

The point I am making is that it can be dangerous to invest all of your goalscoring capability in one player. To focus everything/direct everything, towards one player. That's what happened in '85-'86. I was there. I saw it. And when push came to shove, there was nothing else. That's why we fell at the last hurdle in both the league AND the FA Cup.

Notwithstanding having a great goalscorer leading the line, we also need the goals to come regularly from other areas. The danger is having too much reliance on Lukaku. Others have stated on this forum that without his goals in the last couple of seasons, we would have potentially been in relegation trouble. The goalscoring burden needs to be spread to others in the team - that's the point I'm making.

I have said this a couple of times myself, while it is fantastic having one goalscorer almost guaranteed to score 1 in every 2 games. Our 2nd top scorer after 10 games is Barkley with 3 and Barry with 2
Put that in contrast to the RS Mane, Firminho & Coutinho all have 6, Milner and Sturridge 4, Lallana 3, Loveren, Can & Origi in 2.
Goals for them are coming from all over the place so it is hard for teams to stop it when you can specificly pick out a certain goal threat!
Spurs have a similar situation while Kane was injured, they struggled to get goals as Kane was there one main goal source.
Now saying this and putting it into action is 2 complete separate things as you need to factor in the right players, form, tactics etc.
But the year we finished 5th Barkley, Mirallas, Baines & Coleman all got a good number of goals so we were more difficult to play against as teams could not just go, stop lukaku you stop everton.
I wouid say at this current point in time that is probably the case

 

[PITA]

Are you still at this?

We did not lose the title in '86 because Lineker scored 30 goals.

Contrary to what you like to think the goal scoring burden was shared around......Sharpie scored 19 league goals that season FCOL.

Adrian Heath scored 10.

That is a whopping 59 goals from our three strikers.

And Trevor Steven weighed in with plenty as well.

That was a far better team than the one which lifted the title twelve months later......and it scored a lot more goals.

We lost the league that season because the RS won about ten or twelve games in a row after we beat them.

We did very little wrong.

On top of that we lost Neville for the last two months of the season.....if he had not been injured playing for Wales on a rugby pitch there is little doubt he alone would have seen us over the line (not that Bobby Mimms did much wrong, he just wasn't Neville).

Lineker actually scored to give us the lead at Wembley....it wasn't his fault we gifted them a goal to get back in the game.

And we won it in '87 for the exact opposite reason.....the RS were well clear but they collapsed on the run in and we put together a splendid run.

The situation with Lukaku is totally different.

There literally is very few goals coming from any other source.

And indeed that is a very bad situation.

You, my friend, are absolutely spot on.

 

[Khalekan]

You, my friend, are absolutely spot on.

Thank you

 

[Ashtonian]

Surely he has been hired to finish better than 6th in Moshiris own words...

So he should be focusing on doing so and attracting more lukaku level quality players to us...not trying to sell our best players

He hasn't. We needed to get into europa, so we hired a manager proven in this league in getting that. Us in europa improves our standings immensely when he sods off to the next club in a couple of years.

The level of apologism for the quote is astounding tbf. I've made my peace with it as I suspect it's a calculated effort on Koeman's part to get a buyer for a player he doesn't rate. If I'm wrong about that, however, the comments are unforgivable

lol

if he never had rom we would be languishing down the table right now. Yet he doesn't rate the fella that keeps scoring for him?

Not sure i get this mentality, i am sure koeman would not want to lose a 25 goals striker at all, especially one that even he believes could play for the top clubs in the world. That view makes no sense!

 

[Ashtonian]

Are you still at this?

We did not lose the title in '86 because Lineker scored 30 goals.

Contrary to what you like to think the goal scoring burden was shared around......Sharpie scored 19 league goals that season FCOL.

Adrian Heath scored 10.

That is a whopping 59 goals from our three strikers.

And Trevor Steven weighed in with plenty as well.

That was a far better team than the one which lifted the title twelve months later......and it scored a lot more goals.

We lost the league that season because the RS won about ten or twelve games in a row after we beat them.

We did very little wrong.

On top of that we lost Neville for the last two months of the season.....if he had not been injured playing for Wales on a rugby pitch there is little doubt he alone would have seen us over the line (not that Bobby Mimms did much wrong, he just wasn't Neville).

Lineker actually scored to give us the lead at Wembley....it wasn't his fault we gifted them a goal to get back in the game.

And we won it in '87 for the exact opposite reason.....the RS were well clear but they collapsed on the run in and we put together a splendid run.

The situation with Lukaku is totally different.

There literally is very few goals coming from any other source.

And indeed that is a very bad situation.

Is this not because we have signed very few actual goalscorers? When you delve into the squad not many of them can really score goals in the first place, so overall it would take a squad overhaul to achieve what you wish and more goals everywhere. Something which the club will not do because god forbid we try and flog some of the players.

 

[Old Blue 2]

Are you still at this?

We did not lose the title in '86 because Lineker scored 30 goals.

Contrary to what you like to think the goal scoring burden was shared around......Sharpie scored 19 league goals that season FCOL.

Adrian Heath scored 10.

That is a whopping 59 goals from our three strikers.

And Trevor Steven weighed in with plenty as well.

That was a far better team than the one which lifted the title twelve months later......and it scored a lot more goals.

We lost the league that season because the RS won about ten or twelve games in a row after we beat them.

We did very little wrong.

On top of that we lost Neville for the last two months of the season.....if he had not been injured playing for Wales on a rugby pitch there is little doubt he alone would have seen us over the line (not that Bobby Mimms did much wrong, he just wasn't Neville).

Lineker actually scored to give us the lead at Wembley....it wasn't his fault we gifted them a goal to get back in the game.

And we won it in '87 for the exact opposite reason.....the RS were well clear but they collapsed on the run in and we put together a splendid run.

The situation with Lukaku is totally different.

There literally is very few goals coming from any other source.

And indeed that is a very bad situation.

Yes I am still at this.

We lost the title in '85-'86 after having an 8 point lead with 12 games to go. WE caved in in the latter part of the season - it had nothing whatsoever to do what the RS did. WE CAVED IN. And a major factor in that caving in is shown in the undisputeable facts following the 2-0 win at the RS. In the 10 games following that 2-0 win, we scored only 9 goals. Two of them were from Lineker. So in those 10 tens we scored a total of 7 goals from other outfield players. In the last two games, when the RS had overtaken us and we no longer had the title opportunity in our own hands, we hammered a woeful Southampton 6-1, and in the swansong game of the season, when it didn't really matter any more, we beat West Ham 3-1, both those games at home.

Go check the above facts if you want. You won't find anything different...

 

[Lanolin]

Yes I am still at this.

We lost the title in '85-'86 after having an 8 point lead with 12 games to go. WE caved in in the latter part of the season - it had nothing whatsoever to do what the RS did. WE CAVED IN. And a major factor in that caving in is shown in the undisputeable facts following the 2-0 win at the RS. In the 10 games following that 2-0 win, we scored only 9 goals. Two of them were from Lineker. So in those 10 tens we scored a total of 7 goals from other outfield players. In the last two games, when the RS had overtaken us and we no longer had the title opportunity in our own hands, we hammered a woeful Southampton 6-1, and in the swansong game of the season, when it didn't really matter any more, we beat West Ham 3-1, both those games at home.

Go check the above facts if you want. You won't find anything different...

If you class winning 7, drawing 2 and losing 1 of the last 10 games of the season as 'caving in', I dread to think what you've made of the last 25 years.

 

[Eggs]

....there could be a number of reasons for RKs statement, Lukaku is showing no inclination to sign a new contract and it could be a public statement that the club will let him go to one of the real top clubs if he renews. It could, however, be an acceptance of the inevitable, or RK doesn't think Lukaku is irreplaceable and wants the monies to give him significant scope to fund much needed replacements under fair play rules.

Who knows what's going on. No matter how we argue on here, only time will tell if RK has the skill in the transfer market to take us to the next level.

 

[Toast]

[QUOTE="Eggs, post: 5013152, member: 16669]

Remember the time when we were taken over by a mysterious billionaire, and we dreamed of Mata, Witsel etc.. With Jose as our next gaffer..

No one mentioned Jim White or new deal for Gibson.

 

[Baines' left foot]

No, you are completely wrong in what you say when quoting me!

The point I am making is that it can be dangerous to invest all of your goalscoring capability in one player. To focus everything/direct everything, towards one player. That's what happened in '85-'86. I was there. I saw it. And when push came to shove, there was nothing else. That's why we fell at the last hurdle in both the league AND the FA Cup.

Notwithstanding having a great goalscorer leading the line, we also need the goals to come regularly from other areas. The danger is having too much reliance on Lukaku. Others have stated on this forum that without his goals in the last couple of seasons, we would have potentially been in relegation trouble. The goalscoring burden needs to be spread to others in the team - that's the point I'm making.

I was taking the piss mate lol

You do make a good point though. You may be right to an extent but I don't think we have too much choice because Rom is streets ahead of any of our attacking players.

 

[Old Blue 2]

If you class winning 7, drawing 2 and losing 1 of the last 10 games of the season as 'caving in', I dread to think what you've made of the last 25 years.

You need to read my post properly. I said the following 10 games after the 2-0 win at Anfield. I also said that we were 8 points ahead with 12 games to go.

In the folloiwing 10 games, it was 5-3-2.

Villa (h) 2-0
Chelsea (h) 1-1
Luton (a) 1-2
Newcastle (h) 1-0
Man U (a) 0-0
Arsenal (a) 1-0
Watford (a) 2-0
Ipswich (h) 1-0
Notts For (a) 0-0
Oxford (a) 0-1

The above were the following 10 games after the win at Anfield on 22nd February.

As I pointed out also, in the last 2 home games, it was out of our hands. At the Southampton home game, loads of people had radios, and we were following the RS score at Chelsea. They scored in the first half, and ended up winning 1-0 to clinch the title.

Please read my posts properly...