Romelu Lukaku has not scored in eight games, and is thus currently suffering through the worst scoring drought of his time at Manchester United. That’s just unacceptable, to put it mildly, for a £75 million player. Although it’s not exactly all that shocking given his track record. Those who have worked with the Belgian have said that he’s prone to dry spells such as these.
What is surprising though is that 1.) he keeps scoring goals for his national side and
2.) his drought hasn’t come when United have been playing top competition.
That was the biggest knock on Lukaku when United brought him over from Everton in July of 2017- he doesn’t score against the big six/in big games.
Today, in a league fixture at home versus his former team, he was reintroduced to the bench, and manager Jose Mourinho explained why in a pregame interview. (Although it can be argued that no explanation was really needed, the numbers speak for themselves in this situation).
‘The reason is he is playing lots of matches and lately, not just not scoring goals, but also not showing lots of confidence and sometimes we decide that the best thing for the players is to not be on the pitch, to be protected and away from the initial pressure,” said Mourinho.
“If he comes into the game later, he will come with a positive feeling of trying to make a difference and be back to normality because normally with Romelu, he scores lots of goals. So I think he is under pressure a little bit because he is not doing that.”
United, sans Lukaku, went into halftime with a 1-0 lead, thanks to Paul Pogba sending home the rebound off a penalty kick that he missed.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, regularly appears as a guest pundit on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
He also contributes sociopolitical essays to Lineups.com and Chicago Now. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. The content of his cat’s Instagram account is unquestionably superior to his.