Manchester United actually win the Romelu Lukaku/Mason Greenwood debate

Manchester United have been proven right.

Player wants to leave Club A because he’s fallen out with management and doesn’t feel appreciated. Club A want player to leave because he doesn’t fit into new manager’s new fast-moving, fast-thinking, fast-pressing system and because he reported back for pre-season 5kg overweight. Player is a bona fide goalscorer who will have no trouble finding a new home. He inevitably does as Club B, also a top-tier outfit, quickly come in for his services. After a bit of jousting, a deal between Club A and Club B is eventually struck. Club A are seen as taking a gamble as they’re losing guaranteed goals, but they are confident as they know they possess quick, talented strikers, as well as a potential gem in their youth ranks who is both-footed and has shown glimpses of world-class finishing ability.

Seems like a good move for both parties, right? And, so it has proved for both Manchester United and Inter Milan.

Romelu Lukaku has been devastating for his new club Inter this season and even though he was unable to end it by firing the Italians to Europa League glory on Friday night he can take a crumb of comfort in the fact he gave absolutely everything he could to try and earn the Nerazzurri a trophy.

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Lukaku netted the opening goal in the final – his 34thin 51 games during the elongated 2019/20 campaign. Scoring in the showpiece and claiming goal 34 were feats that saw him emulate Brazil icon Ronaldo’s accomplishments for the same club in the 1997/98 season – the only cruel anomaly being Ronaldo’s 70th minute strike at the Parc des Princes on May 6, 1998, sealed a comfortable 3-0 win over fellow Italians in the UEFA Cup final, whereas Lukaku’s 5th minute penalty at Cologne’s Rhein Energie Stadion on Friday was just an aperitif to a five-course goal feast won by serial Europa League winners Sevilla. Their 3-2 triumph earned the Andalusians a record-extending sixth title.

But there is no doubting Lukaku has been rejuvenated in Italy’s north-west, the 27-year-old fittingly booting the biggest single-season haul of his career in the country shaped like a boot.
His goals went some way to securing Inter a runners-up spot in Serie A, their highest finish in nine years, even though another sharp pang of disappointment came in the guise of finishing just a point behind perennial kings of Italy, Juventus – whose unbroken nine-year domination domestically came desperately close to finally being destroyed.

Despite Lukaku’s lethal form, however, United should and will not be casting an envious eye to the Italian capital, opining for a beloved former player they regrettably saw ushered out the door. Many were happy to see him go and in the bulky Belgian’s absence, phenomenal talent Mason Greenwood has been allowed to thrive.

Additionally, both Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial have stepped out of Lukaku’s shadow to shine. Both produced their best goalscoring seasons for United in 2019/20 (Martial scoring 23 goals and Rashford 22) and combined to become the first Red Devils duo to register double figures for goals since Dimitar Berbatov and Javier Hernandez did so in the 2010/11 campaign – nine years ago.

It’s been an excellent deal for all involved, so why are social media and some sections of the media so determined to prove United have been left with egg on their faces?

Lukaku reignited his career at Inter and proved he is a goalscoring beast, one of the world’s best. But he never fit – or perhaps wanted to – into the new system being implemented by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. His departure has allowed Greenwood to develop, at a more lightning pace than probably anyone at the club could have hoped for.

Critics will say Solskjaer got lucky, that Greenwood’s emergence was more out of necessity than choice and his success is down to good fortune rather than good management. They won’t dare give the man they gleefully refer to as the Norwegian PE teacher a crumb of credit for actually having the courage of his convictions to jettison a genuine goalscorer, albeit a problematic one, and put faith in not only his new system, but a new United superstar.

Bruno Fernandes was the catalyst that sparked United’s turnaround this season, that is undeniable. He is a world-class player, everyone knew that when he was destroying opponents in Portugal’s Primeira Liga – his 15 assists and 32 goals from 55 2018/19 outings a testament to that. Rashford, and Martial in-particular, are finally turning promise into consistent performances, and goals.

But Greenwood’s rapid ascension from youth team and social media phenom to genuine generational talent has been almost unfathomable, and was undeniably the most joyous aspect of last term. This is a player who was still just 17 when he scored his first two senior goals for United at the end of September – against Rochdale in the EFL Cup and more impressively against Astana on the European stage.

The most interesting aspect of this bizarre Lukaku/Greenwood comparison is that if you really drill down and analyse, it is United who are actually better off.

Lukaku bagged 15 goals across 45 games in his final season in red. After plundering 27 in 51 during a blistering debut campaign, his second season’s return was actually paltry for a deadly finisher, one who in all honesty is probably in the world’s top 10.

For Greenwood, now 18, the best Solskjaer or any United fan would have realistically hoped for last season was that the rookie showed flashes of talent and grabbed the odd goal while mainly operating from the shadows of Martial and Rashford. Greenwood instead exploded and actually surpassed Lukaku’s final Old Trafford campaign – scoring two more goals in four more appearances (17 in 49), although Lukaku did play 3,001 minutes in 2018/19, nearly 500 more than Greenwood’s 2,592 last term.

These are the stats of a seasoned finisher, then aged 26, and an unheralded teenager who didn’t turn 18 until last October.

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Considering all this, isn’t it insane there’s such a mammoth debate raging?

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