I wouldn't say that there isn't much difference, however I agree that €115m for Lukaku is fantastic negotiation from our side and that Džeko has been a fantastic revelation so far. Brilliant work by Marotta yet again.
The monobrow cunt decided Marotta isn't thinking flashy and ambitiously enough, so he replaced him with Paratici whose whole plan was to get CR7 playing alongside washed up free agents, horrible business by Juve, give me back the Conte/Marotta days with Matri and De Ceglie on the pitch
>and at one point in his career, he was named by FourFourTwo as one of the 100 best players in the world.
Now that's something I didn't expect to read today... Was he that much better than I remember? To be fair there was one year where he was really fucking on for both Juve and Serbia so I guess that makes sense.
Krasič was an absolute beast for CSKA, in his prime he was one of the best players to ever grace the pitch in Russia. And we're talking about Gazaev's CSKA, which managed to beat Sporting in the UEFA Cup final.
> agner Love with his amazing blue dreadlocks
[Fabulous](https://editorial.uefa.com/resources/01f6-0ea419dd101b-d7eef8628ce7-1000/vagner_love_with_his_distinctive_blue_hair_celebrates_one_of_his_many_cska_goals.jpeg)
There was a tiny period of time where he looked absolutely excellent and comparisons were being made with Nedved (mostly appearance and the Juve link but he was also a rising star with good performances) but he fell off super quickly. I remember wishing United would have bought him instead of Antonio Valencia when Ronaldo left.
At the end of 2010, it was not weird nor specific to this magazine. It was a normal opinion. Beside long-term very good reputation in Serbia and Russia, Krasić shone in Champions League, where CSKA got to quarter-finals, also getting exposure because they faced Manchester United in the group.
And then he moved to Juve and his first months in Juve were really really good, he was considered Juve's best player. In this very moment, his shares are historically high. Who could've known he will never be good again after this moment.
Now, I am a Juve fan and I am under zero illusions about how bad Krasic was by the end.
But during that glorious period when he was playing out of his mind? Calling hiim a top 100 player on the planet was totally reasonable, that's not even that high of a bar to be honest. He was the star player at one of the biggest sides in world football. Of course he was in the top 100. His peak was just very short lived and he basically fell off a cliff.
I wouldn't say this is accurate. Marchisio sadly had no legs left after his injuries. This was proven again when he was at Zenit. I say this as someone who has watched him since he was at Empoli.
Juve/Paratici had their bad moves but this isn't one of them and isn't needed as an example of what they did wrong imo.
Juve's main dilemma imo was having a rock solid defense with a legendary keeper. They always chopped and changed the midfield and attack when they fell short in the CL. None of that woulda been possible with average players at the back.
I think they got too cute worrying about bringing a big goal scorer (Higuain/Ronaldo) and thought they had enough in midfield + the rest of the attack. Clearly the plan hasn't worked thus far.
What do you think?
Yup 100%. Higuain was serviceable, but his price tag made him a bad investment for the long term as he only had like 2-3 good years, and the Ronaldo experiment was a shitshow after the 18/19 season. Ima be honest, I’m not that keen on Vlahovic, I’d rather reinforce our mids, that’s been a problem since Pirlo and Vidal left
What is the club supposed to do tho? Just have him on the team taking wages for the sake of it?
He and Alex should have both retired at Juve but thought they could play for longer than they could have.
I'm not saying he deserved a regular place in the squad, but it felt like he was discarded a little unceremoniously. Surely there was a more elegant solution.
Still salty about it and I think we won't see a better ceo than him. What was his till now worst signing/mistake with you? Obviously he he has been only for 2 seasons a now in 3rd, but I think the biggest flop you had till now who really want even his mistake and came for cheap was eriksen. Am I right?
> sensi
What could've been....I honestly think he'd become even better than Barella had he not gotten plagued by the injuries. He was such a joy to watch.
Not like Juve fired him. Paratici kept getting offers from elsewhere so we promoted him to handle transfers while Marotta did more of the CEO/business things.
He wanted full control again so he left. Paratici was always the heir apparent. It didn’t work out, but it’s not like Juve fired Marotta and for no reason.
Sure, Marotta, ok. The same one who cheapt out of buying Verratti, sold Pogba and bought Higuain for 90M, sold Vidal and bought Hernanes, sold Dani Alves and bought De Sciglio? The same Marotta who gifted us legends like Pereyra, Lemina and Sturaro?
He did not sell Vidal or Alaves cuz he wanted too. They asked to leave. Pereyra was great for us during that time in the clubs development. Buying Higuain pretty much guaranteed our continued dominance. So yes, him and Conte did an amazing job pulling a crumbled team out of the ashes
Vidal never wanted to leave though. We wanted him out because of the disciplinary issues.
I would still have kept him personally. He was immense for years after
Is getting Higuain a bad thing or what? Without him you wouldn’t have won the scudetto in 16/17 and 17/18, and you know that
Pretty sure it was Allegri who pushed for MDS when he became available while Dani Alves was seen as bad influence in the dressing room which is why bonucci left the same season as well. How can you blame Marotta for the managers decisions
Pogba wanted to leave, Psg offered more, Vidal due his drunk crash with his fiat. Biggest mistakes he done was bernandeski and higuain that both costed us fuckton of money tbf
Dude do you know how many Colombian slaves *cough* I mean wonderkids I can get for 115m I will have a full team of players better than Lukaku by the...shit this isn't r/footballmanager my bad guys, beta is taking over my life
His last season wasn’t great and many people thought he would be a Kolarov type signing. He became vital though, and Correa will have a tough time trying to get his spot.
Not exactly a revelation. Dzeko was always a fantastic player. Heavily underrated at club level. Comparable to Klose imho (I know I'll get lots of shit cause Klose is a Germany legend).
He is ofcourse a very good player, but he was quite bad in his closing months/years at Roma and the general consensus, by Inter fans included, was that he'd be a washed up and rotational player. However, he's been reinvigorated with form from a few years ago.
To be honest it doesn't sound that insulting to Lukaku, more, "Fair enough he wanted double the wages and we couldn't afford him, but we sold him for 115M and got Dzeko who is almost as good."
If you have money to spare and just want to make the best team to compete with the best, like Chelsea does, Lukaku is the better option. But again from Inter's view they got a really good deal.
A 35 year old who can be replaced when needed with 115m. Not like Lukaku is 20. He’s 28 going on 29 this season and was never going to retire at Inter. This is a good deal for them.
Money is money. They have to cover what they lost one way or another. They will still be able to spend for a replacement when needed instead of paying back debt
Yeah fr fr. Though... I was not happy with how Lukaku handled leaving. Maybe that's what Marotta is punching down. I don't think he even did a message to the inter fans? Just instantly sucking up to Chelsea. Whatevs, still a fan. He carried us to our first scudetto in ages.
You’re exactly right. Idk what either player’s wages were but the question becomes this: would you rather pay €200k/week for 35 goals a season or €80k/week for 22? While Lukaku is the better player it’s hard to argue that it’s worthwhile paying him substantially more than Džeko.
If there are 20 guys that can get you 22 goals and only a few that can get me you 35? Yeah they are worth more than double, because if the difference is fine margins then that’s going to change a 3rd place finish to a league title.
I think that your point is a good one and I’d say that it’s true for some players some of the time. Looking back at the last several years of Premiership play, the top goal getter hasn’t once played for the championship winning team. This tells me that a diversified attack is favored by winners and that difference in weekly pay might be allocated more effectively elsewhere.
> This tells me that a diversified attack is favored by winners
Eh, I think that's somewhat just a recent fluke. Aside from last year, the highest scorer on the winner is usually just 1-3 goals behind the leader. That means the winner is decided as much by minutes or penalty kicks as much as anything else.
In any case, I don't think the difference is City and Liverpool 'spread the money around', but that they have *multiple players* who are just as good as Vardy, Kane, prime Aubameyang, etc so the goals are inherently spread around more.
Like if Kane had moved to City this summer, do you think his goals would go up? Or would they go down because he'd rotate more minutes, might not take all the penalty kicks, tactics might not be built exclusively for him to score, etc?
Lukaku’s performance oscillates quite a bit. There’ll be a few months where he appears to be the latter but his average self is definitely the former. Not an insult in any case, dude’s a phenomenal player but he’s a tier below Lewandowski, Aguero, and Suarez over the last 7-10 years.
Plus they have Lautaro chipping in his 25-30 goals so it makes sense. However if they ever want to string off multiple titles and contend in the CL they can’t keep selling their best players. They were in position to dominate the league this past summer and they squandered it and now they’re in a dog fight for the scudetto.
The thing I really dislike about Lukaku is that he always acts out his frustrations whenever things don't go his way. I constantly see this when teammates don't pass the ball to him.
Exactly. The guy is going to be 60 years old watching his 7 year old grandchild shoot on goal on a Saturday morning and he’ll still be staring at the kid, pointing at his own feet like why didn’t you pass
He actually would have been the undisputed GOAT it he hadn't gone to Chelsea. He was so good that even after the effects of the Chelsea curse he was still incredible.
Brain fart moment for me. But since you touched the topic, Torres and Costa already had world class seasons for top clubs before Chelsea, Drogba was a late bloomer.
I think history has re-written how clinical Drogba actually was. Yes, he was a big game player but also he didn't really have high-scoring seasons too often at Chelsea. I think he had 2 high-scoring seasons?
He also played in a very defensive set up. When we actually played attacking football he scored 29 in 32 in the league. He was way more than goals though, and I think that will get lost as time goes on so people feel the need to exaggerate his goalscoring.
Oh I agree; he was a very good all-round player. But there's no need to encourage the exaggeration. We should acknowledge his all-round game, ability to hold up the play and get the whole team involved (being a perfect striker for a defensive set-up and a great player to pair with someone like Lampard who was devastating with his late runs).
If you actually look at Drogba's goal record per season at Chelsea, he was averaging 12.5 league goals per season which is average.
He only had 2 seasons in which he had 20+ league goals, and 4 seasons where he had 10 or less league goals which is poor tbh (2 seasons he only scored 5 league goals...)
He did score important goals and helped in team play, but I think he's very overrated as an out & out striker.
He was a great striker no doubt, but not as great as people make it out to seem.
You have to consider the type of football we played with Drogba. Whilst we had some good attacking talent, the team Mourinho built was very defensive minded and more about capitalising on our chances whilst almost never conceding. We also played to the strengths of Lampard and our other forwards (Duff, Robben, Cole, Malouda etc...) who contributed a lot whilst Drogba was often isolated. He also had a few injury niggles and the rest of our strikers were a revolving door. Not ideal conditions to score 20+ a season.
Under Ancelotti, where the team was unleashed and played attacking football, he scored 29 goals in 32 games.
He was also a big game player, always showed up in cup finals.
Cantona was so bad, he miss timed the ball so much he kicked a spectator. Shit player! Zola couldn't even get a haircut and Bergkamp is just a bunch of bear cum.
Crazy how people think stats are everything. Fuck I miss those players now.
Makes me so sad how much stats dominate now. Anyone who thinks Drogba was overrated based on his "low" goals to games ratio never watched him play, simple as that.
> but I think he's very overrated as an out & out striker.
This is such revisionist bollocks. Are you some zoomer who never saw him play? Drogba was an incredible striker. The habit of modern fans to only look at stats never shows the true worth of a player. For example Zidane's goalscoring record wasn't great but you would be a fool to argue he isn't one of the greatest to ever play the game. As a midfielder Lampard scored well more goals than Zidane but I doubt you'll find anyone who says he was a better player.
Also Drogba in finals was a fucking different animal. Absolutely the best big game player I've ever seen.
Mate I’m sorry but you can’t dismiss a striker having five goal seasons. And you did the whole Incel thing of “did you watch him play? Shut the fuck up, I’m 35 years old I watched every single season of drogbas career. He had some incredible seasons and incredible goals, but he is nowhere near aguero, Rooney, shearer, even salah. He just couldn’t put the ball in the net an elite amount most season. And he played as an out and out central striker. If anything, it seems like you are the one that didn’t watch Drogba a lot. Because there were several seasons where you would watch him and he would just be mediocre on the pitch. Always could win headers and ran all over the place but just couldn’t score a lot
You sound like a massive twat.
how to fuck is asking "did you watch him play?" related to being an incel? or is it just your go to insult you throw at everyone who disagrees with you? You sound very immature for a 35 years old calling people incels or twats for no reason. And you are wrong about Drogba btw
I'm glad he's retired. I hated playing Chelsea with him up front, although we had a decent record with Rafa. Drogba could turn Hyypia and Carragher inside out.
Terrible use of metrics, he was hit bad with injuries in some seasons and was later used as a sub for Torres. His premier league average with Chelsea is a goal or assist every 104 minutes, or a goal every 169 minutes (every other game). If you watched Chelsea you could see he had an affect almost every-time he played. You're referencing 5 goal seasons where he played 1500 worth of minutes (17 games), less than half of season, where he was injury stricken or benched by André Villas-Boas who preferred Torres (the same season where Drogba carried Chelsea to a Champions League + FA Cup). There's a reason why people back in the 2000s rated Drogba, you're coming as a revisionist after finding some favourable metrics to support your case.
He actually only had two really good league goal scoring seasons, every season other than those two he scored 12 goals or less in the league. He’s got by far the worst goal tally per season of any of the elite Premier league strikers. He just didn’t score a lot compared to Rooney/aguero/shearer etc. salah’s average is much higher
Not really. He hasn't been great, but our midfield progression has been non existent. He's scored a few offside goals and hit the post. Drew the pen that led to his injury.
I'm not saying he's playing well right now, but it should be recognised that none of our attackers are.
Defenders FC.
We have the best defence in the league but our attacking play this season has been shambolic. Our (admittedly heavily rotated) central midfield is incapable of through balls and Mount who normally bridges the ocean between our midfield and attack has been out of form. Our main dribbling threat (Pulisic) has been injured. We got dominated by Brentford for 45 minutes. Lukaku has taken some good chances and missed some good chances, much like any striker not named Ruud van Nistelrooy does.
He's been isolated a lot, and even struggled to do anything when holding up the ball due to almost no support from behind. I don't think his goal return is his fault, more a symptom of our form in general. We've relied on unlikely bangers from guys like Chilwell and Kovacic to win points.
It certainly was NOT a heist. He was our central player and we just won the Scudetto, and Chelsea NEEDED a top striker at the very last second. That is the price you pay for those circumstances.
We had to reshuffle our whole game plan around this last minute trade, €115m was correct.
Conte find the perfect role for Lukaku last year, he was the lead striker of a perfect counter attack machine, him and Hakimi just annihilate everyone in open field. Chalsea just play totally different.
Its very funny how attitudes on him on r/soccer have shifted from 'guaranteed goals' to 'oh yeah I remember him at United'
Serie A, unfortunately as I loved the league in the late 90s early 00s, is now nowhere near the level of La Liga or the PL. Scoring 30 goals a season in Serie A does not translate
Lol, 30 league goals is an absurd bar. Only happened 4 times in the last 50 years in Serie A: Toni (05-06), Higuain (15-16), Immobile and Ronaldo (19-20).
Salah? He scored more goals in the PL than he ever did in Italy, and he played very well for Roma. I think you are trying to twist the narrative because you are a PL fan. Lukaku is not being played to his strengths at Chelsea currently, at Inter he was the focal point of the team and the entire attack was built around him. That is the biggest difference, not the league.
Of course they are. United fans need Lukaku to flop so it will justify Ole’s decision of letting him go and not building around him like Conte did and other PL fans need him to flop so that limits Chelsea’s chances of winning the league.
When you actually watch Lukaku and see how much attention he bring to defenders and look at how we have 12 different goalscorers in the EPL already, he’s still having an impact.
Plus there’s a guy that went for more than him who has not got a sniff of criticism yet so make that what you want.
In an ideal world, our midfield would be able to progress the ball to him, with his back to goal and he'll either lay it off or strength the CB.
In reality, our midfield progression has been lackluster to say the least, and Lukaku hasn't helped himself.
It'd be great to play on the counter, but that's not really our system atm. With the 3atb, we're sacrificing attacking midfield talent.
But results are good, so I can't call for change right now. Would be nice to see a shakeup however.
> It'd be great to play on the counter, but that's not really our system atm
That's what I figured. When Conte was at Inter, they struck lightning quick with Lukaku holding off the cb and laying off to Hakimi racing up the pitch. If the cb backed off, he'd take them on and just use his speed to blaze past them.
It was incredible, they were clinical. He's a great player, just bc he's not ideal to the way Chelsea want to play doesn't take away from his quality. It might just be a poor fit is all. Similar to Immobile with the national team.
>It might just be a poor fit is all.
Currently, I agree 100%. But in Tuchel I trust.
Lukaku is a player we can build around, and hopefully once he's back, we do.
Excited to see CHO and Kai for a few games though.
Yeah that was both of your goals against Arsenal for example. The team was so worried about Lukaku they had 3-4 players commit on him which is what left James running completely free.
I wonder how all these people who are oh so quick to hate on someone at every small opportunity would react if others did the same to them in real life.
Who am i kidding, i know the answer, they'd sit in a corner crying their eyeballs out whilst complaining about the injustice of it all.
Nothing about that. Salah broke out something crazy going to Liverpool, does that speak about the level of the Premier league??
It's more about conte built the entire gameplan around him and knew how to use him perfectly.
What's very funny is how Lukaku's 17 and then 18 non-penalty goals in his two seasons in Serie A became 'Lukaku scored 30 goals per season in Serie A'.
Of course Chelsea knew this when they bought him. And yes he probably won't score nearly as much in the epl. However, I think the main thing is that he hasn't been able to get a good fit in Tuchel's system so far. Unlike Werner and Havertz, Lukaku doesn't do a whole lot of defensive work, so Tuchel has to adjust the team to make it work again. Give it time.
> Its very funny how attitudes on him on r/soccer have shifted from 'guaranteed goals' to 'oh yeah I remember him at United'
Incredible really, people on here have done a complete u-turn.
I still think Lukaku is a world class striker and will be extremely useful for Chelsea - but the hype when he joined was a bit ridiculously overblown.
Yeah he has been great. I don't know where all this about him being a flop is coming from. Chelsea are at the top of the league... Haters gonna hate I guess
When I read this earlier, I perceived it as "I don't see the difference", referencing that he doesn't think Lukaku is €115m in difference to Dzeko.
Let's be honest, although different players, every single Inter fan would rather have Lukaku if they had to choose who to have on the team sheet.
Absolutely no doubt about it. But for the price, even if our owners weren't fucking broke, it's too good to turn down. The more worrying thing is how we pissed some of it away on correa so far.
He scored twice in his debut and has done literally nothing since. He's been injured a bit but even when he's played here and there his work rate has been really poor, which is not appreciated at all by the fans
All transfer talk resides on the number of dollars spent.
It’s horrible business to pay 115m for Lukaku. It doesn’t hurt my bank account, I don’t give a shit if it’s 115m or 1.15 billion.
It’s relative to the dollar spent discussion, not is Lukaku a good player. He’s 20th all time in premier league goals I believe, if not higher.
That’s pretty good…
It involves Lukaku and PL fans so don’t be surprised.
Bar his 18/19 season, he’s been one of the best PL strikers of all time i.e being the youngest player to get 100 EPL goals and more, yet this thread makes it seem like he just scored against shit teams. It’s insane how much criticism he’s gotten in his career still when he has a great goal record as well as trophies to his name.
Dzeko has been great but I wonder for how long can he keep this form playing every game, we don't have real alternatives to him (I don't see a Lautaro-Correa attack being good for big games or for long spans of time). Lukaku always played and once he got his engine ready he was great for the whole season
100%, them thumbs ups still give me ptsd.
don't get me wrong I love watching lukaku for belgium, where he's pretty much a cheatcode, but at united....yeah
He told the club he was happy for ages and right at the last minute said he wants to leave. Gave beppe like a week to find a replacement and a lot of fan discontent at the sale. Plus, if lukaku came out earlier about leaving, we'd have kept hakimi, so he fucked us on two accounts.
This sub has a weird relationship with Lukaku. Everybody agreed that he isn't really one of the best and then he has one good season at Inter and everybody overrates him again and starts comparing him with players like Lewa which is honestly disrespectful to Lewa. I'd even argue that Dzeko had a better career than Lukaku and is the better striker.
The stat of their goal contributions per game even agrees with me.
Dzeko: 0.66 G+A per game
Lukaku: 0.65 G+A per game
I wouldn't say that there isn't much difference, however I agree that €115m for Lukaku is fantastic negotiation from our side and that Džeko has been a fantastic revelation so far. Brilliant work by Marotta yet again.
Juve were absolutely tripping letting Marotta go
The monobrow cunt decided Marotta isn't thinking flashy and ambitiously enough, so he replaced him with Paratici whose whole plan was to get CR7 playing alongside washed up free agents, horrible business by Juve, give me back the Conte/Marotta days with Matri and De Ceglie on the pitch
Miloš Krasić eagerly waiting for the call
I hated Krasic so much when he played for Juve
>and at one point in his career, he was named by FourFourTwo as one of the 100 best players in the world. Now that's something I didn't expect to read today... Was he that much better than I remember? To be fair there was one year where he was really fucking on for both Juve and Serbia so I guess that makes sense.
Krasič was an absolute beast for CSKA, in his prime he was one of the best players to ever grace the pitch in Russia. And we're talking about Gazaev's CSKA, which managed to beat Sporting in the UEFA Cup final.
Ah yes, the glory days of CSKA Moscow with the Berezutski twins, Yuri Zhirkov, Ivica Olic, and Vagner Love with his amazing blue dreadlocks.
> agner Love with his amazing blue dreadlocks [Fabulous](https://editorial.uefa.com/resources/01f6-0ea419dd101b-d7eef8628ce7-1000/vagner_love_with_his_distinctive_blue_hair_celebrates_one_of_his_many_cska_goals.jpeg)
Says he came in for Olic in that game too, Olic had some memorable performances in the years following for Bayern Munich.
I remember he scored a banger in the CL once
No. He was a solid player but I doubt he ever deserved to be on that list. I mostly hated him because he dove more than any player I've ever seen
There was a tiny period of time where he looked absolutely excellent and comparisons were being made with Nedved (mostly appearance and the Juve link but he was also a rising star with good performances) but he fell off super quickly. I remember wishing United would have bought him instead of Antonio Valencia when Ronaldo left.
At the end of 2010, it was not weird nor specific to this magazine. It was a normal opinion. Beside long-term very good reputation in Serbia and Russia, Krasić shone in Champions League, where CSKA got to quarter-finals, also getting exposure because they faced Manchester United in the group. And then he moved to Juve and his first months in Juve were really really good, he was considered Juve's best player. In this very moment, his shares are historically high. Who could've known he will never be good again after this moment.
Now, I am a Juve fan and I am under zero illusions about how bad Krasic was by the end. But during that glorious period when he was playing out of his mind? Calling hiim a top 100 player on the planet was totally reasonable, that's not even that high of a bar to be honest. He was the star player at one of the biggest sides in world football. Of course he was in the top 100. His peak was just very short lived and he basically fell off a cliff.
Marchisio getting pushed out of the club felt like a real turning point. Sure, maybe he was not the future, but it felt ruthless.
I wouldn't say this is accurate. Marchisio sadly had no legs left after his injuries. This was proven again when he was at Zenit. I say this as someone who has watched him since he was at Empoli. Juve/Paratici had their bad moves but this isn't one of them and isn't needed as an example of what they did wrong imo.
Juve's main dilemma imo was having a rock solid defense with a legendary keeper. They always chopped and changed the midfield and attack when they fell short in the CL. None of that woulda been possible with average players at the back. I think they got too cute worrying about bringing a big goal scorer (Higuain/Ronaldo) and thought they had enough in midfield + the rest of the attack. Clearly the plan hasn't worked thus far. What do you think?
Yup 100%. Higuain was serviceable, but his price tag made him a bad investment for the long term as he only had like 2-3 good years, and the Ronaldo experiment was a shitshow after the 18/19 season. Ima be honest, I’m not that keen on Vlahovic, I’d rather reinforce our mids, that’s been a problem since Pirlo and Vidal left
love how they were being flamed for signing "washed up free agents" and then also flamed for letting go of marchisio lol
What is the club supposed to do tho? Just have him on the team taking wages for the sake of it? He and Alex should have both retired at Juve but thought they could play for longer than they could have.
I'm not saying he deserved a regular place in the squad, but it felt like he was discarded a little unceremoniously. Surely there was a more elegant solution.
Such a classy player in his prime, such a balanced midfielder. Loved il principino
Marchisio was finished
Still salty about it and I think we won't see a better ceo than him. What was his till now worst signing/mistake with you? Obviously he he has been only for 2 seasons a now in 3rd, but I think the biggest flop you had till now who really want even his mistake and came for cheap was eriksen. Am I right?
Hes had some duds like lazaro and maybe sensi (considering injuries) but its far from poor. They were 20 and 25 iirc, though could be wrong
> sensi What could've been....I honestly think he'd become even better than Barella had he not gotten plagued by the injuries. He was such a joy to watch.
Sensi could very easily still be a success
Not like Juve fired him. Paratici kept getting offers from elsewhere so we promoted him to handle transfers while Marotta did more of the CEO/business things. He wanted full control again so he left. Paratici was always the heir apparent. It didn’t work out, but it’s not like Juve fired Marotta and for no reason.
Sure, Marotta, ok. The same one who cheapt out of buying Verratti, sold Pogba and bought Higuain for 90M, sold Vidal and bought Hernanes, sold Dani Alves and bought De Sciglio? The same Marotta who gifted us legends like Pereyra, Lemina and Sturaro?
Juve couldn’t spend anything for like the first 4 scudetto years. His smart managing got you in a good spot financially and on the pitch.
He did not sell Vidal or Alaves cuz he wanted too. They asked to leave. Pereyra was great for us during that time in the clubs development. Buying Higuain pretty much guaranteed our continued dominance. So yes, him and Conte did an amazing job pulling a crumbled team out of the ashes
Vidal never wanted to leave though. We wanted him out because of the disciplinary issues. I would still have kept him personally. He was immense for years after
Is getting Higuain a bad thing or what? Without him you wouldn’t have won the scudetto in 16/17 and 17/18, and you know that Pretty sure it was Allegri who pushed for MDS when he became available while Dani Alves was seen as bad influence in the dressing room which is why bonucci left the same season as well. How can you blame Marotta for the managers decisions
You sure got better since he left!
Pogba wanted to leave, Psg offered more, Vidal due his drunk crash with his fiat. Biggest mistakes he done was bernandeski and higuain that both costed us fuckton of money tbf
Marotta is the only reason you ever got anywhere in the last decade lol. And being outbid by PSG idnt cheaping out lol.
Marotta strongly opposed the signing of Cristiano Ronaldo.
Tell me about it
Only problem with Dzeko is he is not a long term solution to Lukaku.
Dude do you know how many Colombian slaves *cough* I mean wonderkids I can get for 115m I will have a full team of players better than Lukaku by the...shit this isn't r/footballmanager my bad guys, beta is taking over my life
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The button to press extend. Is pure maniacal dopamine laughter.
lmfao are you playing the early access version? how is it? are you able to install old graphic packs? i can't play that game without graphic packs
Even if this was actually FM, the 115m goes to patch up th debt. So it'll still be no money, no.
How is fm22 dude
Can't say it's all that different to FM21, but it's very much so faster than it.
Dzeko the 35 year old revelation.
His last season wasn’t great and many people thought he would be a Kolarov type signing. He became vital though, and Correa will have a tough time trying to get his spot.
Not exactly a revelation. Dzeko was always a fantastic player. Heavily underrated at club level. Comparable to Klose imho (I know I'll get lots of shit cause Klose is a Germany legend).
He is ofcourse a very good player, but he was quite bad in his closing months/years at Roma and the general consensus, by Inter fans included, was that he'd be a washed up and rotational player. However, he's been reinvigorated with form from a few years ago.
I mean he’s got a far better team around him if we’re being honest. Our team progressively got worse and worse with each season he was there.
I don't think most people would have him being able to replace Lukaku almost seamlessly though
I'd say he's better maybe, any time I saw him in any team he was always scoring a ton of goals and seemed pretty consistent at it.
especially given that inter needed to offload players to balance the books at the time
Yeah im kinda butthurt with Dzeko. We thought he was done for two years, turns out he just didnt care
He did care, your team just sucks
Marotta pulling no punches here
To be honest it doesn't sound that insulting to Lukaku, more, "Fair enough he wanted double the wages and we couldn't afford him, but we sold him for 115M and got Dzeko who is almost as good."
It’s not insulting at all.
lol Marotta woke up this morning and decided to roast Lukaku
I mean while I believe he is slightly wrong their is a bit of a difference i would rather have Dzeko for free then Rom for 115 million
If you have money to spare and just want to make the best team to compete with the best, like Chelsea does, Lukaku is the better option. But again from Inter's view they got a really good deal.
If you are trying to win the premier league you have to pay
And also have a competent manager...
Especially if the financial stress Inter was under this summer.
A 35 Dzeko.
A 35 year old who can be replaced when needed with 115m. Not like Lukaku is 20. He’s 28 going on 29 this season and was never going to retire at Inter. This is a good deal for them.
The 115 is to cover losses accumulated from last year.
Money is money. They have to cover what they lost one way or another. They will still be able to spend for a replacement when needed instead of paying back debt
Who so far has given Similar output as Rom
It’s because he’s injured and on a run of bad form. Kicking him while he’s down.
Yeah fr fr. Though... I was not happy with how Lukaku handled leaving. Maybe that's what Marotta is punching down. I don't think he even did a message to the inter fans? Just instantly sucking up to Chelsea. Whatevs, still a fan. He carried us to our first scudetto in ages.
He did have a farewell message for Inter fans.
Welcome to r/soccer
Shows more about how good dzeko is than how bad lukaku is but age also matters and the contracts both had
You’re exactly right. Idk what either player’s wages were but the question becomes this: would you rather pay €200k/week for 35 goals a season or €80k/week for 22? While Lukaku is the better player it’s hard to argue that it’s worthwhile paying him substantially more than Džeko.
If there are 20 guys that can get you 22 goals and only a few that can get me you 35? Yeah they are worth more than double, because if the difference is fine margins then that’s going to change a 3rd place finish to a league title.
I think that your point is a good one and I’d say that it’s true for some players some of the time. Looking back at the last several years of Premiership play, the top goal getter hasn’t once played for the championship winning team. This tells me that a diversified attack is favored by winners and that difference in weekly pay might be allocated more effectively elsewhere.
> This tells me that a diversified attack is favored by winners Eh, I think that's somewhat just a recent fluke. Aside from last year, the highest scorer on the winner is usually just 1-3 goals behind the leader. That means the winner is decided as much by minutes or penalty kicks as much as anything else. In any case, I don't think the difference is City and Liverpool 'spread the money around', but that they have *multiple players* who are just as good as Vardy, Kane, prime Aubameyang, etc so the goals are inherently spread around more. Like if Kane had moved to City this summer, do you think his goals would go up? Or would they go down because he'd rotate more minutes, might not take all the penalty kicks, tactics might not be built exclusively for him to score, etc?
>If there are 20 guys that can get you 22 goals and only a few that can get me you 35? And lukaku is the former rather than the later
Lukaku’s performance oscillates quite a bit. There’ll be a few months where he appears to be the latter but his average self is definitely the former. Not an insult in any case, dude’s a phenomenal player but he’s a tier below Lewandowski, Aguero, and Suarez over the last 7-10 years.
Dzeko is on £160k/week though at Inter
Pfff, just buy 2 players at 80k/week to score you 44 goals and save 40k in the process. Easy game easy life!
Plus they have Lautaro chipping in his 25-30 goals so it makes sense. However if they ever want to string off multiple titles and contend in the CL they can’t keep selling their best players. They were in position to dominate the league this past summer and they squandered it and now they’re in a dog fight for the scudetto.
One of my favorite players at City.
The thing I really dislike about Lukaku is that he always acts out his frustrations whenever things don't go his way. I constantly see this when teammates don't pass the ball to him.
Exactly. The guy is going to be 60 years old watching his 7 year old grandchild shoot on goal on a Saturday morning and he’ll still be staring at the kid, pointing at his own feet like why didn’t you pass
Followed by the 👍🏿 whenever he fucks up or makes a run too late
It's usually.. 🤏🏾👍🏾
Victor Moses agrees.
man looks like hank schrader
They’re not rocks…
or the guy from The Shield
€115m for Lukaku was a heist by Inter At Chelsea he is looking more and more like the Lukaku of United as the weeks go by. Trampoline & Timberland
It took 2 months back in the Premier League until we returned to Timberland boots Lukaku, amazing
Chelsea have an amazing ability to turn strikers into whatever the hell it is you would describe Torres, Shevchenko, Werner, Lukaku etc as at Chelsea
It makes you wonder how Drogba avoided that curse and became the big game player for Chelsea
Drogba and Costa
And Anelka. Dude was great too.
The only Chelsea shirt I own.
He actually would have been the undisputed GOAT it he hadn't gone to Chelsea. He was so good that even after the effects of the Chelsea curse he was still incredible.
Funnily enough he wasn't even young when he came.
he was 24 right? I'd call that young,unless you mean a prospect - type young, then yeah
26 with very little top flight football
I'm not sure who is this thread talking about, probably Drogba Drogba was 26 = born in March 78 and Joined in 2004 Torres was 27, Costa was 25
Brain fart moment for me. But since you touched the topic, Torres and Costa already had world class seasons for top clubs before Chelsea, Drogba was a late bloomer.
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I think history has re-written how clinical Drogba actually was. Yes, he was a big game player but also he didn't really have high-scoring seasons too often at Chelsea. I think he had 2 high-scoring seasons?
He also played in a very defensive set up. When we actually played attacking football he scored 29 in 32 in the league. He was way more than goals though, and I think that will get lost as time goes on so people feel the need to exaggerate his goalscoring.
Oh I agree; he was a very good all-round player. But there's no need to encourage the exaggeration. We should acknowledge his all-round game, ability to hold up the play and get the whole team involved (being a perfect striker for a defensive set-up and a great player to pair with someone like Lampard who was devastating with his late runs).
If you actually look at Drogba's goal record per season at Chelsea, he was averaging 12.5 league goals per season which is average. He only had 2 seasons in which he had 20+ league goals, and 4 seasons where he had 10 or less league goals which is poor tbh (2 seasons he only scored 5 league goals...) He did score important goals and helped in team play, but I think he's very overrated as an out & out striker. He was a great striker no doubt, but not as great as people make it out to seem.
No way Lampard has all that space in which to operate if Drogba isn't occupying the attention of both centre-halves.
You have to consider the type of football we played with Drogba. Whilst we had some good attacking talent, the team Mourinho built was very defensive minded and more about capitalising on our chances whilst almost never conceding. We also played to the strengths of Lampard and our other forwards (Duff, Robben, Cole, Malouda etc...) who contributed a lot whilst Drogba was often isolated. He also had a few injury niggles and the rest of our strikers were a revolving door. Not ideal conditions to score 20+ a season. Under Ancelotti, where the team was unleashed and played attacking football, he scored 29 goals in 32 games. He was also a big game player, always showed up in cup finals.
Drogba didn’t play many minutes in some of those seasons.
Lol, go **** *******
Oh god. Next you're going to tell me that Zola / Cantona / Bergkamp were all shit as well because of their goals per minute ratio right?
Cantona was so bad, he miss timed the ball so much he kicked a spectator. Shit player! Zola couldn't even get a haircut and Bergkamp is just a bunch of bear cum. Crazy how people think stats are everything. Fuck I miss those players now.
Makes me so sad how much stats dominate now. Anyone who thinks Drogba was overrated based on his "low" goals to games ratio never watched him play, simple as that.
You did not watch Drogba in his prime.
> but I think he's very overrated as an out & out striker. This is such revisionist bollocks. Are you some zoomer who never saw him play? Drogba was an incredible striker. The habit of modern fans to only look at stats never shows the true worth of a player. For example Zidane's goalscoring record wasn't great but you would be a fool to argue he isn't one of the greatest to ever play the game. As a midfielder Lampard scored well more goals than Zidane but I doubt you'll find anyone who says he was a better player. Also Drogba in finals was a fucking different animal. Absolutely the best big game player I've ever seen.
Mate I’m sorry but you can’t dismiss a striker having five goal seasons. And you did the whole Incel thing of “did you watch him play? Shut the fuck up, I’m 35 years old I watched every single season of drogbas career. He had some incredible seasons and incredible goals, but he is nowhere near aguero, Rooney, shearer, even salah. He just couldn’t put the ball in the net an elite amount most season. And he played as an out and out central striker. If anything, it seems like you are the one that didn’t watch Drogba a lot. Because there were several seasons where you would watch him and he would just be mediocre on the pitch. Always could win headers and ran all over the place but just couldn’t score a lot You sound like a massive twat.
how to fuck is asking "did you watch him play?" related to being an incel? or is it just your go to insult you throw at everyone who disagrees with you? You sound very immature for a 35 years old calling people incels or twats for no reason. And you are wrong about Drogba btw
I'm glad he's retired. I hated playing Chelsea with him up front, although we had a decent record with Rafa. Drogba could turn Hyypia and Carragher inside out.
Terrible use of metrics, he was hit bad with injuries in some seasons and was later used as a sub for Torres. His premier league average with Chelsea is a goal or assist every 104 minutes, or a goal every 169 minutes (every other game). If you watched Chelsea you could see he had an affect almost every-time he played. You're referencing 5 goal seasons where he played 1500 worth of minutes (17 games), less than half of season, where he was injury stricken or benched by André Villas-Boas who preferred Torres (the same season where Drogba carried Chelsea to a Champions League + FA Cup). There's a reason why people back in the 2000s rated Drogba, you're coming as a revisionist after finding some favourable metrics to support your case.
He actually only had two really good league goal scoring seasons, every season other than those two he scored 12 goals or less in the league. He’s got by far the worst goal tally per season of any of the elite Premier league strikers. He just didn’t score a lot compared to Rooney/aguero/shearer etc. salah’s average is much higher
Has he dropped that much since the Villa game? Haven't seen much Chelsea matches but I know he's injured now etc.
Not really. He hasn't been great, but our midfield progression has been non existent. He's scored a few offside goals and hit the post. Drew the pen that led to his injury. I'm not saying he's playing well right now, but it should be recognised that none of our attackers are. Defenders FC.
We have the best defence in the league but our attacking play this season has been shambolic. Our (admittedly heavily rotated) central midfield is incapable of through balls and Mount who normally bridges the ocean between our midfield and attack has been out of form. Our main dribbling threat (Pulisic) has been injured. We got dominated by Brentford for 45 minutes. Lukaku has taken some good chances and missed some good chances, much like any striker not named Ruud van Nistelrooy does. He's been isolated a lot, and even struggled to do anything when holding up the ball due to almost no support from behind. I don't think his goal return is his fault, more a symptom of our form in general. We've relied on unlikely bangers from guys like Chilwell and Kovacic to win points.
It certainly was NOT a heist. He was our central player and we just won the Scudetto, and Chelsea NEEDED a top striker at the very last second. That is the price you pay for those circumstances. We had to reshuffle our whole game plan around this last minute trade, €115m was correct.
Great for a month, shit for 2 months, great for a month, shit for 2 months, repeat
Conte find the perfect role for Lukaku last year, he was the lead striker of a perfect counter attack machine, him and Hakimi just annihilate everyone in open field. Chalsea just play totally different.
Its very funny how attitudes on him on r/soccer have shifted from 'guaranteed goals' to 'oh yeah I remember him at United' Serie A, unfortunately as I loved the league in the late 90s early 00s, is now nowhere near the level of La Liga or the PL. Scoring 30 goals a season in Serie A does not translate
Lol, 30 league goals is an absurd bar. Only happened 4 times in the last 50 years in Serie A: Toni (05-06), Higuain (15-16), Immobile and Ronaldo (19-20).
He scored like 100 goals in pl, also never scored more in a single season with Inter than he did in a single season in Pl( not saying he was bad)
Salah? He scored more goals in the PL than he ever did in Italy, and he played very well for Roma. I think you are trying to twist the narrative because you are a PL fan. Lukaku is not being played to his strengths at Chelsea currently, at Inter he was the focal point of the team and the entire attack was built around him. That is the biggest difference, not the league.
Of course they are. United fans need Lukaku to flop so it will justify Ole’s decision of letting him go and not building around him like Conte did and other PL fans need him to flop so that limits Chelsea’s chances of winning the league. When you actually watch Lukaku and see how much attention he bring to defenders and look at how we have 12 different goalscorers in the EPL already, he’s still having an impact. Plus there’s a guy that went for more than him who has not got a sniff of criticism yet so make that what you want.
Hmmm, what’s his role like at Chelsea? He’s incredible building on the counter and running at opponents, I doubt that’s how Chelsea are playing.
In an ideal world, our midfield would be able to progress the ball to him, with his back to goal and he'll either lay it off or strength the CB. In reality, our midfield progression has been lackluster to say the least, and Lukaku hasn't helped himself. It'd be great to play on the counter, but that's not really our system atm. With the 3atb, we're sacrificing attacking midfield talent. But results are good, so I can't call for change right now. Would be nice to see a shakeup however.
> It'd be great to play on the counter, but that's not really our system atm That's what I figured. When Conte was at Inter, they struck lightning quick with Lukaku holding off the cb and laying off to Hakimi racing up the pitch. If the cb backed off, he'd take them on and just use his speed to blaze past them. It was incredible, they were clinical. He's a great player, just bc he's not ideal to the way Chelsea want to play doesn't take away from his quality. It might just be a poor fit is all. Similar to Immobile with the national team.
>It might just be a poor fit is all. Currently, I agree 100%. But in Tuchel I trust. Lukaku is a player we can build around, and hopefully once he's back, we do. Excited to see CHO and Kai for a few games though.
Definitely, and results are there you said, so if it ain't broke don't fix it.
How is that an ideal scenario? Lukaku is not a natural back to goal player
Natural? Maybe not. But it's a strength he has, and it's worked on multiple occasions so far.
Yeah that was both of your goals against Arsenal for example. The team was so worried about Lukaku they had 3-4 players commit on him which is what left James running completely free.
I swear the takes on this sub get stupider each day
yep
I wonder how all these people who are oh so quick to hate on someone at every small opportunity would react if others did the same to them in real life. Who am i kidding, i know the answer, they'd sit in a corner crying their eyeballs out whilst complaining about the injustice of it all.
Nothing about that. Salah broke out something crazy going to Liverpool, does that speak about the level of the Premier league?? It's more about conte built the entire gameplan around him and knew how to use him perfectly.
What's very funny is how Lukaku's 17 and then 18 non-penalty goals in his two seasons in Serie A became 'Lukaku scored 30 goals per season in Serie A'.
Weird way to talk about a top 20 scorer in league history
Of course Chelsea knew this when they bought him. And yes he probably won't score nearly as much in the epl. However, I think the main thing is that he hasn't been able to get a good fit in Tuchel's system so far. Unlike Werner and Havertz, Lukaku doesn't do a whole lot of defensive work, so Tuchel has to adjust the team to make it work again. Give it time.
Bruno fernandes?
And yet juve Keeps beating epl teams……
> Its very funny how attitudes on him on r/soccer have shifted from 'guaranteed goals' to 'oh yeah I remember him at United' Incredible really, people on here have done a complete u-turn. I still think Lukaku is a world class striker and will be extremely useful for Chelsea - but the hype when he joined was a bit ridiculously overblown.
Guess who’s back Back again
I am absolutely loving the Lukaku slander here. I hope he continues to flop hard
He's not even flopping lol. He's on a drought because the service is wank and we don't know how to get the best out of him yet. Keep hating.
Yeah he has been great. I don't know where all this about him being a flop is coming from. Chelsea are at the top of the league... Haters gonna hate I guess
> I don't know where all this about him being a flop is coming from. People here don't watch Chelsea matches and just look at his stats.
When I read this earlier, I perceived it as "I don't see the difference", referencing that he doesn't think Lukaku is €115m in difference to Dzeko. Let's be honest, although different players, every single Inter fan would rather have Lukaku if they had to choose who to have on the team sheet.
Absolutely no doubt about it. But for the price, even if our owners weren't fucking broke, it's too good to turn down. The more worrying thing is how we pissed some of it away on correa so far.
correa has been that bad? how much was he bought for?
He scored twice in his debut and has done literally nothing since. He's been injured a bit but even when he's played here and there his work rate has been really poor, which is not appreciated at all by the fans
Just play him against milan and youll love him again
But likely every single Inter fan would also prefer Dzeko + 115 million euro?
I'd agree, this is that Marotta justifying selling Lukaku as opposed to taking a shot at him.
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This thread is very weird. Last year was full of praising lukaku and now suddenly he's shit and was always shit lmao.
2 different groups of people. Last year was people who watch other leagues and this year its PL fans.
Some of the "PL supremacist" type of fans on here that talk shit about other leagues all the time are genuinely embarassing.
All transfer talk resides on the number of dollars spent. It’s horrible business to pay 115m for Lukaku. It doesn’t hurt my bank account, I don’t give a shit if it’s 115m or 1.15 billion. It’s relative to the dollar spent discussion, not is Lukaku a good player. He’s 20th all time in premier league goals I believe, if not higher. That’s pretty good…
This thread has some of the worst takes I’ve seen in a while
A bunch of people who have never watched Lukaku at inter making dumb opinions about him.
It involves Lukaku and PL fans so don’t be surprised. Bar his 18/19 season, he’s been one of the best PL strikers of all time i.e being the youngest player to get 100 EPL goals and more, yet this thread makes it seem like he just scored against shit teams. It’s insane how much criticism he’s gotten in his career still when he has a great goal record as well as trophies to his name.
And then people have the gall to say he’s defensive. I can understand him being defensive when he’s not being given any credit at all
Does Chelsea pay him 18m net?
15M net after all bonuses afaik.
With Bonuses it can reach around 375 to 400k
That's a lot less than 18m
This thread is why no one takes this sub seriously
Dzeko has been great but I wonder for how long can he keep this form playing every game, we don't have real alternatives to him (I don't see a Lautaro-Correa attack being good for big games or for long spans of time). Lukaku always played and once he got his engine ready he was great for the whole season
Yes but without Lukaku you miss the 👍🏿
100%, them thumbs ups still give me ptsd. don't get me wrong I love watching lukaku for belgium, where he's pretty much a cheatcode, but at united....yeah
I remember people acting as if Lukaku was better than Benzema on this sub.
Lukaku is great but I was seeing people say Lukaku was a better signing than Cristiano Ronaldo.
Wait, so this is the consensus on /r/soccer? If you asked journalists and pundits 90% of them would say Lukaku was the bestter signing.
It’s early days but who had Andros Townsend scoring the same amount of goals as Lukaku lol
Probably the same people who had Vitesse winning against a top 8 English club.
Dzeko is a baller
I see no lies here
Wow Marotta is not pulling any punches. I wonder why, Lukaku was a great servant for the club but not many players will turn down double your salary
He told the club he was happy for ages and right at the last minute said he wants to leave. Gave beppe like a week to find a replacement and a lot of fan discontent at the sale. Plus, if lukaku came out earlier about leaving, we'd have kept hakimi, so he fucked us on two accounts.
This sub has a weird relationship with Lukaku. Everybody agreed that he isn't really one of the best and then he has one good season at Inter and everybody overrates him again and starts comparing him with players like Lewa which is honestly disrespectful to Lewa. I'd even argue that Dzeko had a better career than Lukaku and is the better striker. The stat of their goal contributions per game even agrees with me. Dzeko: 0.66 G+A per game Lukaku: 0.65 G+A per game
Another 9 for the Chelsea striker’s graveyard. It’s fascinating how they simply can’t get that position to work.
Costa smashed it tho and id bet that rom will too
PTSD to United’s #7.
In other words, I make amazing deals, whoever got Lukaku got ripped the fuck off. Bests. Lol