The Belgian has not scored for 217 minutes and the Azzurri have the worst attack of the top six teams in the championship
In the 91st minute, when Napoli-Lazio now seemed compromised (and it was), the substitution board turns into a seasonal watershed and opens up to an unsuspected season: in the moment in which Maradona realizes that time for Romelu Lukaku , at least in that hour and a half it has expired, the whistles that can be heard in the air represent not only the bitterness of the moment but also a small indictment.
There are still twenty-three appeals you can count on, however the numbers are starting to take away certainties and fuel doubts: is there a Lukaku problem? For an entire evening, Lukaku did not see the door, nor was he put in a position to see it: and the question, alas, is now plastically settled.
give me five
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Lukaku scored five goals, to which he also added four assists: a clear internal product that offered little to Napoli, not that devastating power that made one suspect Conte’s stubborn wait to embrace his ideal center forward. Maybe it’s the age (31, not that many!); or that retreat in isolation at Cobham Training Ground will have had an impact; or even, and there is, a certain offensive difficulty for Napoli, the worst of the six sisters – let’s call them that – threatened up there, where there is more crowding than ever in other people’s penalty areas. But Lukaku is stuck, he goes under (his) pace, scores and then stops for two weeks and in the last two months he has only scored three. But above all he doesn’t shoot: no shots against Lazio, average of one and a half per game so far.
cohesion
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For now, and we are now in the fourth month, a real offensive assembly is missing, Lukaku is systematically chased with long balls (by the central defenders, by the midfielders or even by the goalkeeper), to then be swallowed up by the opposite player on duty: it’s tough life even if you are Big Rom. And so, Napoli trusted Lukaku’s experience, waited for him with confidence, dreamed that with that physique he would (almost) alone get rid of the opponents and finally realized that Big Rom, Kvara and Politano live in distant galaxies. Conte tried to bring them closer, but was unable to feel satisfied with his attempts.
shadows
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Then add the shadow of Osimhen, who is always there, in the heads of those who go to the stadium or sit in front of the TV. Osimhen has never disappeared from the heart of Naples, impossible, despite the temperamental quirks that led to the break with Adl and then to the transfer (for free, on loan) to Galatasaray: in the collective imagination, the Nigerian is a sort of ‘grateful core’ 3.0, in reality it is the colossal regret from which Maradona cannot escape.
cost
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Lukaku cost 30 million euros, plus six in salary for a three-year period; Osimhen has been parked on the Bosphorus, waiting for very rich admirers to arrive capable of paying the (new) clause: 80 in January or 75 in June, but only for those living abroad, this is not possible in Italy. Details that have an impact on the unconscious.
timer
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There is a space, one might say a void, that characterizes this term for Lukaku: between one goal and another, patience is needed. He needed 253 minutes, for example, between the strike against Monza and the penalty against Como; he had to wait another 238 minutes before stunning Milan at San Siro; and after leaving the Meazza it took another 318 minutes to get him into that part that he struggles to find again. The last Lukaku stopped in the 53rd minute of Napoli-Roma, so 217 minutes passed in abstinence: where is the mistake?
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