Manchester United striker Romelu Lukaku has entered a recent dry spell, failing to score a goal in his last six games. The drought has Red Devils supporters irked and incensed; so much so that it inspired manager Jose Mourinho to publicly defend Lukaku against the fans, and thus create somewhat of a row between Mourinho and the fan base.
However, a new study commissioned by the CIES Football Observatory, estimates the transfer market values of team rosters and ranks them and the Romelu Lukaku results are quite flattering (€165.3m).
That places him higher than Barcelona’s Luis Suarez, Chelsea’s Eden Hazard or Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo. Yes, you read that right, even CR7 himself.
Of course that’s a product of youth being factored into the equation, as younger players naturally end up with higher valuations for obvious reasons. Lukaku is age 24 while Ronaldo is 32. It’s also worth noting that the Lukaku valuation converts to £146 million, and almost double what United paid (£75 million)!
What a steal.
Lukaku is also ahead of Chelsea striker Alvaro Morata, a man to which he will often be compared moving forward as they both transferred clubs at almost the same time, with each other’s clubs keen on the other guy.
The tweet below lists the top ten clubs in the world, with each team’s most valuable player listed just below. You can read all of the CIES findings over at this link.
New @CIES_Football Weekly Post on estimated transfer value per club: @ManCity ahead of @SpursOfficial, more at https://t.co/PJ5kI94YyJ pic.twitter.com/25N1Kh8Yfr
— CIES Football Obs (@CIES_Football) November 6, 2017
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune corporation blogging community Chicago Now.
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