Red Rom!!!

On Monday the 10th of July Romelu Lukaku became Man Utd’s second signing of the summer costing the club a reported fee of £75 million. A striker became a top priority signing for United this summer after the injury to Ibrahimovic towards the end of last season. During the post season International matches, Lukaku was interview by a Sky Sports reporter and claimed that he knew where he would be playing his football next season. After these comments speculation was rife that he was on the verge of joining Chelsea. Newspapers and other various media outlets were even going as far as saying that a fee was agreed with Everton and personal terms had been agreed with the player himself.

During this period it was looking like United’s intentions were to sign Alvaro Morata from Real Madrid. Marca, a Madrid based newspaper that is notorious for being the media mouthpiece for Real Madrid, seemed to be writing stories on a regular basis that would suggest that United were close to signing the Spanish striker. The Madrid based newspaper were writing exclusive articles about how Morata’s agent and Father had met Real Madrid club officials to force through the move. The same paper also reported that Morata himself cut his honeymoon short to notify the club in person that it was his wish to leave.

It wasn’t until a week before this transfer was completed that any Lukaku to Chelsea transfer was apparently far from a done deal and the BBC as well as Neil Custis from The Sun were telling us that United were Lukaku’s preferred choice and that a bid from United for him could be imminent. Its worth noting at this point that Neil Custis has been very accurate this summer when reporting on United. On Wednesday evening our Twitter feed was going in to overdrive that United had a reported £75 million bid accepted by Everton, news that was made official by United via their twitter account on the Thursday morning. We believe at this stage the deal was as good as done barring any last minute hiccups.

So the question is was all the talk about United signing Alvaro Morata a smokescreen to allow the reds to get the Lukaku deal done quietly in the background?… Well if you ask us our response would be answers on a postcard. From what we are hearing it is not certain that a deal for Morata is dead, after all Jose Mourinho didn’t seem to rule it out at his press conference on Friday the 15th of July but one thing is for sure Lukaku was Jose’s first choice for that number 9 shirt. Many people could argue that United could do with signing another striker this summer but you would have to say Morata has very similar attributes to Lukaku so would he be happy playing second fiddle to Romelu or being forced to play out of position to get in to the team.

Our Opinion;

We believe that Lukaku will be an ideal signing for United. He has all the attributes that Mourinho would look for in a centre forward he’s big, strong, powerful and quick and will look to bully defences in the Premier league and around Europe in the United shirt. There are however question marks over his first touch and this is something that Mourinho will look to improve during his second spell working with the striker. The positives to this move far out way the negatives though in our opinion and another plus to the Lukaku signing is: unlike some of the other strikers United have been linked with this summer e.g. Morata, Belotti, Aubameyang etc he has proven himself in the Premier league and has a very healthy goalscoring record since being in England.

In 2011 Lukaku joined Chelsea from Belgian side Anderlecht when coincidently Mourinho was manager of Chelsea. After only making 10 appearances in his first season for Chelsea he went out on loan to West Bromwich Albion during the 2012/13 season to try and earn his stripes in the Premier League. Whilst on loan in a struggling West Brom team Lukaku started to show his great potential scoring 17 goals in 35 games. In the following season it was made clear to him that his chances of playing at Chelsea once again would be limited.

This time the Belgian striker was seeking a loan move to a “top half” team in the league where he would be able to play with better players with the opportunity of winning silverware. In came Everton and after a very impressive season long loan where he scored 15 goals in 31 appearances The Toffees decided to smash their transfer record by signing Lukaku on a permanent deal the following season (2014/15) for a fee of £28 million. During his permanent spell with Everton Romelu was their go to man and constantly churned out top performances for the blues and had a prolific goalscoring record netting at around 1 in every 2 games (53 goals in 110 apps). Lukaku is also the first foreign player to score 80 goals in the Premier League before the age of 24.

Lukaku’s game is about more than the goals he scores, as mentioned earlier the man from Belgium is a big physical presence and this has been used to create space for his team mates and to draw the attention of opposition defenders. So with all this considered lets hope that Red Rom will help United to be lengths ahead at the end of the season!!

M.U.M are the words…