New FPL Transfers Manchester United Lindelof & Lukaku
Hello and welcome to New FPL Transfers Manchester United Lindelof & Lukaku. Man United have been splashing the cash again, but hey why wouldn’t you when Zlatan and Rooney are suddenly off the wage bill?! As ever, United have been linked with a whole host of players over the summer – sadly they failed to secure the services of Neymar, Messi, Ronaldo, Pele and Maradona but hey ho, life is not always plain sailing. Instead, at the time of writing, United have made two significant purchases – firstly they raided Benfica for Swedish defender Victor Lindelof and then they surprised many by grabbing Romelu Lukaku from Everton. Lindelof will be looked upon to bring some stability to a United defence that was beset by injury last term, while the injury and subsequent departure of Zlatan together with United’s general profligacy in front of goal last season meant United needed a big shop window signing to wear the no.9 shirt. Both players have already joined up with United on their preseason tour of the States and will be expected to jump straight into United’s preferred starting XI. Lukaku we all know plenty about, less so Lindelof, but let’s have a look at both to see if they are viable FPL options for us this season.
Victor Lindelof
Defender
FPL Price: 5.5mln
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[/three_fifth]Despite a decent defensive record last season, Mourinho encountered problem after problem at the back. Injuries saw the likes of Chris Smalling, Phil Jones and Luke Shaw miss significant periods of the season – Jones and Shaw are injury magnets, while Marcos Rojo suffered a cruciate ligament injury in April which is likely to keep him out until September at least. Eric Bailly proved a success and Mourinho has dipped into United’s deep coffers to bring 22 year old Victor Lindelof to Old Trafford to partner Bailly. Lindelof is a Swedish central defender who has also operated as a right back – his adaptability will have no doubt been an attraction for Jose. The Swede started his career as a midfielder and he has retained those ball playing skills meaning he is adept at bringing the ball out of defence.
Lindelof made his international debut for Sweden in 2016 and has collected 12 caps – before that he represented his country at U17, U19 & U21 level and was part of the team that won the 2015 U21 European Championships, with Lindelof named in the Team of the Tournament. The Swede moved to Benfica in 2012 as a 17 year old and made 96 appearances for Benfica B before graduating to the first team, where he made 48 appearances.
Don’t look to the Swede to be a prolific goal scoring defender as he scored just twice for Benfica. However, Lindelof’s disciplinary record is historically better than Bailly’s with the Swede collecting just one yellow card last season. The Swede appears to offer a safe if unspectacular route into the United backline and with the Red’s opening fixtures looking particularly enticing, some United coverage at the back looks like a sensible choice. His price of 5.5mln sees him cheaper than Valencia and Bailly and the same price as de Gea.
Romelu Lukaku
Forward
FPL Price: 11.5mln
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[/three_fifth]United certainly pulled a rabbit of the hat when they signed Lukaku with the striker heavily reported to be on his way back to Chelsea. However, Mourinho got his man, hijacking his old employers’ plans in the process and with Zlatan Ibrahimovic being released due to his long-term injury, United will be hoping that Lukaku is the man to re-fire United as league challengers rather than the ‘also rans’ they have been since Sir Alex retired. United have spent £75mln on the Belgian international who scored 68 goals in 141 appearances for Everton and has so far registered 23 goals for his country in 68 appearances.
Now, there are few FPL players who create as much debate as Big Rom or Red Rom as he is now known. There are regular criticisms of the player’s ‘poor first touch’, there are suggestions that the Belgian is a ‘flat-track bully’ who goes missing in the big games and of course in FPL circles his perceived inconsistency has led to him being named Trollkaku, amongst other less polite names!
The flat track bully tag could be considered somewhat unfair as Lukaku scored more goals vs the top 6 clubs last season than Harry Kane, Sergio Aguero, Diego Costa, Ibrahimovic and Alexis Sanchez. United have bought a tried and tested Premier League goal scorer in Lukaku – last season’s 25 league goals were only bettered by Harry Kane and Big Rom was the 5th highest FPL points scorer behind Alexis, Alli, Hazard and Kane and the joint highest scorer of bonus points alongside Kane, Hazard and KdB.
Another possible advantage for Lukaku is the likelihood of him being on penalties with the departures of Rooney and Ibrahimovic – keep an eye on United’s pre-season matches to see if Red Rom is indeed on spot-kick duty.
Detractors will of course point to the fact that Lukaku and Mourinho worked together briefly at Chelsea before the striker left for Everton – on that Lukaku says, “We were together under different circumstances. Obviously, the first time when I met him, I was still a young kid, and I was eager to play. And he understood my decision why I left at the time… I think he wants to improve me, make me a better player than I am today, which is good. I always want to improve…I think it’s the perfect opportunity.” Mourinho is quoted as saying, “Romelu is a natural fit for Manchester United. He is a big personality and a big player. It is only natural that he wants to develop his career at the biggest club. He will be a great addition to the group and I know they will make him very welcome. I am really looking forward to working with him again.”
Lukaku has great friends in the squad, none more so than neighbour Paul Pogba and also fellow international Marouane Fellaini – both will help him settle at Old Trafford and indeed Lukaku has already joined up with the squad on their tour of USA.
At 24 years old Lukaku is still 2/3 years away from his prime and his dreams of playing Champions League football will now been realised. With the likes of Martial, Mkhitaryan, Mata, Pogba and Rashford looking to provide their new team mate chances aplenty expect Lukaku to ‘hit the ground running’ and with United’s first seven fixtures being vs West Ham, Swansea, Leicester, Stoke, Everton, Southampton and Palace a fast start will be demanded by Mourinho and he’ll be looking to his new striker to bully those flat tracks.
Lukaku has been priced at 11.5mln by FPL, putting him on par with Aguero with only Kane more expensive. Owning all three premium strikers will be tricky given the pricing and clearly Lukaku’s move to United has been reflected in his price.
Thanks for reading New FPL Transfers Manchester United Lindelof & Lukaku. This article was written by Cookie
The Fixture Tracker…
Sky saying Rooney played up top and looked ok. However they are also saying Everton looked stronger when he weren’t on pitch
Hey Smash who came on for Roo ???
Calvert Lewin but think it was more to do with Gueye who got man of the match being on the field. Too early to tell really
Evening guys!
hope you’re all hunky dory! Nice to see lots of familiar faces back on, it felt a little lonely around here for a while!
Also nice to see some new names so welcome to you guys! Still a few regs not back but starting to feel all warm and cosy again!!
Still haven’t made a team worth posting, reckon so much will change in a month and I’m still not quite rested from the U21’s so I’m just gonna ease myself back in all slowly like!!
Right on Rosco.
All the time in the world still mate.
Hey GP, did an auto fill but I’ve since done the inevitable tinkering ! I’ll probably just spend the next few weeks over-analyzing, over-researching and over-thinking and then make a knee-jerk team change on the Friday at 6.30 and then wonder why I wasted so much time the last month! Ha ha I’m very happy that it’s back though, keeps me out of mischief!
All good Rosco everyone coming back now already played around a bit but we need to see some friendlies 😉
Totally Silvers, so much can change between seasons, it would be great to nail a solid GW1 team but we all know how tricky that can be!! My initial thoughts are to get in the big hitters who can be downgraded as opposed to scrimping and then panicking about how to get them in!
I am of course already starting to put the old black and white tinted glasses on, not so much that I want to pick Newcastle players but thinking ‘ well Spurs play the toon first match so I’ll avoid Spurs’ knowing full well I’ll be sat in my seat on Sunday 13th watching Kane and Ali destroy my team!! Ha ha whatchagonnado!!
Pick Kane and Alli?
Not made a team myself mate, I must admit.
Yeah with no real summer tournament I hate seeing the site quieter but it’s always great when people then start drifting back and you see familiar faces again, as such. I’ll have to go nudge Raz soon, he’s probably not even noticed it’s started again!
Raz will turn up fifteen minutes before the Arsenal game with a dozen questions demanding they are all answered. QUICKLY!
WHATEVA BITCHES ZOMG
I miss Raz.
Yeah I was wondering where Raz was at!
Reckon I’m going to end up with Kane and Ali then it’s win win come first match!
It’ll be strange watching matches again where the opposition scores and I think ‘ aye canny that’s another X points at least’ !!
I’m off on my Jollys on the 17th Aug so I’ll get to the first match and then I’m on US time which is just weird! Hats of to Pancho, Red and the other Stateside guys, setting your team at bed time and waking up to see it’s all gone tits up is hard graft!!
Good evening guys
Hope everyone is happy enough on here even though it’s gonna be tough to balance a team with the prices
Hello mate, you ok? Actually seeing some really good teams so far, I think the prices look fair on the whole. It seemed harder last season to get a good balance, from memory.
I’m good thanks i think getting a good defence is hard without squeezing the midfield as the proven midfielders have increased in price
What formation are you looking at so far, that’s if you’ve looked that far?
I agree Ron, defence prices are higher than I expected. Bit of a shame as I really like the idea of 4-4-2 before prices came out. Ah well, standard 3-4-3 I feel.
It’s going to have to be 3-4-3 I reckon
He’s mate good to see you on again, be great if you stick around through the season to kick our arses again!
Hey not he’s !
Cheers Roscoe gonna be really difficult to repeat last season and I’m sure the knives are out lol
Ha ha yeah man if last season wasn’t a fluke for me I’d like to try!
I don’t any thing you do well is a fluke! You need an element of luck but I’m sure you will be just as good if not better this season
I’m probably not going to look at positions as such, Alonso for example scored 177 points essentially playing in midfield, he’s priced at 7.0, the highest scoring mid at that price was Zaha getting 149 points but played 3-400 more minutes. I’m not saying that players will perform exactly as they did last season ( be good if they did!!) but I think there are certain players ( Milner if he retains his spot is another) are worth considering over similarly priced players in different positions.
I think we need to find some sleeping giants be interested in Rooney but he still might only be an expensive 3rd striker
hmmmm yeah jury’s out on Rooney for me at the moment but that can easily change!
It always takes a few weeks for the bargains to emerge, I had Capoue from GW1 last season but left him on my bench every week thinking each week was a fluke… then I played him and he reverted to type!!
I didn’t jump on his bandwagon I was expecting his wheels to come off nothing more annoying than a player doing well for you on the bench!