Manchester United Fan View: It’s time for everyone to appreciate Romelu Lukaku

Despite having completed 11 goals and five assists in 23 league appearances, centre forward Romelu Lukaku is yet to receive much appreciation towards his displays and contributions. For sure, he has made defensive mistakes that led to goals for the opposition as well as fail to convert a couple of clear-cut chances here and there, however, his hunger to retrieve loose balls and win as many aerial duels as possible has allowed Jose Mourinho’s side to progress on the counter-attack within a matter of seconds.

In recent months, the Belgian international has seriously improved on his build-up play, which was often criticised because of his first touch or the fact that he constantly dribbles with his left foot and not on his weaker one. His price tag of £75million always comes into the English papers whenever he produces an average display, though, it’s always best to say that he is overpriced and not overrated.

Take the game on the weekend against Burnley for example, where not much was happening for the Red Devils but Lukaku latched on to a loose ball before playing an accurate pass into the feet of Anthony Martial, who converted his shot into the back of the net to give the side the important win and the three points. The aggression and determination within the 24-year-old has allowed the player himself to never settle for less and always try to be a huge difference in games like these week in and out.

In the end, it was actually the other players that let him down this time around as both Marcus Rashford and Paul Pogba decided to not complete a simple pass to Lukaku, who was unmarked and through on goal which could have resulted in either a 2-3/0 win before the team were panicking towards the end defensively. Instead, both individuals went on to either take a shot from distance or overdo their dribble into the penalty area, which frustrated a lot of supporters including myself.

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One factor that many do not notice is that the former Chelsea and Everton forward constantly works his socks off by running down the channels as well as making sure he does not take too many touches outside of the box. A lot of strikers these days have a tendency to complete fancy flicks or tricks to confuse the defenders, meanwhile, Lukaku keeps it simple and effective, showing that he is nothing else but a team player and he just wants to make sure that his side win on a regular basis.

On top of that, he also helps to bring the other players into the game, especially the young ones in Martial and Rashford, two individuals that normally start the game at a slow pace but eventually get into their stride soon or later. Due to this, the side now take their time whilst in possession and are not in panic mode when it comes to getting the equaliser or scoring the winner before the final whistle.

Whilst rival strikers such as Harry Kane and Sergio Aguero easily get four to five shots on target per game, Lukaku within this limited side has to take matters into his own hands as he rightfully gets frustrated due to the lack of service given to him in the final third. Things were worse when Pogba was either injured or suspended, as the team totally failed at bringing the ball forward and creating chances for the forwards effectively.

Come to think about it, Mourinho has not even setup the team around the abilities of Lukaku, who scored a lot of goals from headers last season for Everton but has hardly replicated this so far this campaign at his new club. On the other hand, besides the likes of Ashley Young, Juan Mata and maybe Luke Shaw, the other players within the squad cannot cross constantly from the flanks.

Overall, a fan or a football pundit will believe that the success of a striker can only be analysed depending on how many goals or assists a striker has completed season by season. In the case of Lukaku, he has done very well so far this campaign, but he has a few minor flaws to sort out before he can be considered as one of the best strikers in both the Premier League and in Europe.