Lukaku shows what rivals are missing
Manchester clubs must fear Chelsea’s leaner, sharper striker
Romelu Lukaku appears to be mocking the Manchester clubs. His Chelsea signing seems so obvious, so perfect, that it’s a genuine wonder that the postmortems haven’t already begun in rival boardrooms. For Manchester United, he’s the one that got away.
For Manchester City, he’s the kind of striker that they never had. For both Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Pep Guardiola, he’s a brutal reminder of what neither man has.
In a transfer market drowning in excess, Chelsea’s new striker manages to be both a sure thing and a reasonably priced £97.5 million (S$181.3m) purchase.
Of course, he was going to score against Arsenal. Of course, he was going to treat the Gunners’ hapless defenders like flecks of sand on a beach towel in the Blues’ 2-0 win yesterday morning (Singapore time).
He flicked them aside with minimal effort, barely noticing the minor irritants around him.
Even now, it’s still surprising that a 28-year-old centre forward at the peak of his physical and athletic powers was allowed to wander into Stamford Bridge without at least a frenzied bidding process beforehand.
But the summer season of myopic transfer speculation obsessed over Harry Kane and Jack Grealish. Neither footballer has won a trophy.
Lukaku collected an unexpected Serie A winners’ medal at Inter Milan last season, after scoring 24 goals in 36 league games.
Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel hasn’t discovered an unpolished gem here, but the finished article, one that dazzled for two consistent seasons in Milan. The Blues have not only added a proven striker, but also a transformed one.
Lukaku literally isn’t the same footballer that toiled at Old Trafford, shedding the weight that inhibited his progress.
The muscular striker later suggested a “malfunctioning” digestive system contributed to his undeniable bulkiness and leggy performances at United.
Inter Milan’s nutritionist Matteo Pincella soon addressed the problem. He changed Lukaku’s diet.
For the benefit of those not scientifically inclined, Lukaku ate different foods. Salads were in. Carbonara sauces and pasta were out. Arsene Wenger and the 1990s just called. They want their nutritional revolution back.
Yes, it’s easy to be facetious, but Lukaku’s fitness, training and diet regimens were all being questioned during his time at Old Trafford. His bulk was clearly compromising his undoubted talent.
LOSE WEIGHT, GAIN BELIEF
At Inter, his former coach Antonio Conte signed a striker who weighed 104kg and demanded a leaner forward immediately. Lukaku reportedly lost 3kg in 12 days. He shed more than 8kg in total.
If anything, his excess weight at United arguably tapped into that tired cliche in English football about the big man up front with oak-like thighs and a chest made of velcro, ready to lead the line and trap anything that came his way.
But as Lukaku has already pointed out, he isn’t really that kind of striker, as he ably demonstrated against Arsenal.
Leaner and faster than he ever was at United, he didn’t hold up play, he dictated it, slaloming his way through Arsenal’s ski poles with a guile that he was rarely praised for the last time he played in the EPL.
For his goal, he bullied the traumatised Pablo Mari, certainly, but he also glided away from him, laying the ball off to Mateo Kovacic before driving past Arsenal’s defence in expectation of a final cross into the box. It arrived. He scored.
The sense of inevitability was overwhelming.
Lukaku had eight shots on goal, the most in the match (Arsenal only managed six in 90 minutes).
He had the most shots on target (two), the most touches in the opponents’ box (11), won 57 per cent of his aerial duels, completed 67 per cent of his dribbles and 95 per cent of his passes.
The Belgian called his display “dominant”. Tuchel said that Lukaku gave the Blues “another dimension”. Both are guilty of understatement.
City, on the other hand, do not have another dimension in attack, or a dominant centre forward. Lukaku’s performance practically sounded the alarm for Guardiola.
Last season, City won the league without a regular striker. Last season, Chelsea didn’t have Lukaku.
To paraphrase Tuchel, the title race has another, intriguing dimension now.
United may still reflect on why their fitness staff struggled to find a solution for Lukaku’s sluggishness. They can only watch Chelsea’s recalibrated finisher and wonder what might have been.
If City fail to sign Kane, then Guardiola may end up doing the same.
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