WHY SAY ANYTHING?

After only four games of the new Premier League season it is, possibly, a little early to be making comparisons between the two summer signings.

Had things worked out the way most people expected them to we would now be writing this article about Chelsea’s Romelu Lukaku and Manchester United’s Alvaro Morata but, in one of those ubiquitous twists of fate United, with a little help from super agent Paul Pogba and an initial fee of £75 million, secured the signing of Lukaku who just happened to be on holiday in Los Angeles with Pogba at the time of his signing.

This, of course, meant that Chelsea followed up by signing Morata, which they did for an initial fee of £58 million. The question is: were United right to change tack, if that is indeed what they did, and go for the Belgian, or should they have stuck with their original target?

Since signing for Manchester United Romelu Lukaku has scored a total of four goals in four league games. He has proven himself to be a classic all-round centre forward by scoring with his favoured left foot, his right foot and his head.

His hold-up play has been very good but he does occasionally tend to drift out wide and, when he does this, United have no threat in the middle as none of the other players wants to break their necks getting into the opposition penalty area.

In truth, United are often outnumbered when a ball is played into the box for this reason and Lukaku has done very well to score the goals he has done to date.

Álvaro Morata is a different type of striker. He is as tall as Lukaku but not as well built. He can’t bully defenders in the same way as the Belgian but he is very quick for his height and manages to take up some excellent positions.

It is this positional sense which has seen him score three goals, all with his head, and they all appeared to be free headers because of this ability to lose defenders in the box.

Of the two, Lukaku has many years of experience playing in the Premier League whereas Morata has spent all of his playing time in either Spain or Italy.

Unlike many “experts” we don’t think that this is particularly relevant. Morata will have met many “cute and savvy” defenders in both countries and particularly in Italy, where defending is considered an art form and is practised as such in a very cynical way.

So the Premier League should hold no fears for the Spaniard and his time in Italy may even have better prepared him for his role at Chelsea.

There is little doubt that, by the end of the season and barring serious injury, Lukaku will be Manchester United’s top scorer and Morata will be the same at Chelsea. As to who will be the Premier League’s top scorer then United and Chelsea are not the only teams involved and some of the others can boast decent strikers of their own.

Harry Kane, having persevered through August with his usual result, ie zero goals, is off the mark and has a couple of goals now that we are in September .

Sergio Agüero and Gabriel Jésus are both scoring for Manchester City having managed two and three respectively but the fact that Guardiola is unlikely to play them both regularly will prevent either of them being the Premier League’s top scorer.

Lukaku’s team-mate at United, Marcus Rashford, also has two goals while Alexandre Lacazette of Arsenal has two as well. And all of this before Alexis Sánchez has even got going, (or been picked).

From a Liverpool point of view, Sadio Mané, should he be able to stay injury-free would be their best bet for top goal scorer but whether or not he is prolific enough to top the Premier League chart is debatable.

So Lukaku, Morata and Kane will probably be the ones fighting it out for the Golden Boot but, as for which of the two former is the better signing for their club, only time will tell.