SoccerClub was at the Hawthorns to see Manchester United beat West Bromwich Albion, and analyse the role played by Romelu Lukaku.

The last time Lukaku played in a match between West Bromwich Albion and Manchester United at the Hawthorns, he scored the goal that brought down the curtain on Sir Alex Ferguson’s reign – completing his hat-trick later on to earn the hosts a 5-5 draw.

This time, Lukaku was on the other side of the fence, but again he made a decisive contribution – scoring the opening goal in a 2-1 United victory. The Belgian has come in for plenty of criticism in recent weeks, but no one should ever doubt his ability to score goals – and lots of them.

Clinical from limited service

Lukaku only actually had two attempts on goal at the Hawthorns, but he scored from the very first opportunity that came his way – finding half a yard of space in the six-yard box, leaping above the defence and heading home Marcus Rashford’s left-wing cross. His second attempt was a decent angled shot that went wide in injury time – certainly not what anyone would regard as a miss.

The paucity of shots isn’t a particularly unusual statistic for the 24-year-old; he’s had 58 shots in the Premier League this season – 42 less than Harry Kane – but has scored only two less than the Spurs striker’s tally of 12 goals. He’s making the most out of much-reduced service.

He had a similarly impressive strike rate last season with Everton: he was the Premier League’s second top scorer behind Kane, but six players had more shots than him throughout the campaign. Among them were Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Christian Eriksen and Gylfi Sigurdsson, then at relegation-threatened Swansea.

Lack of touches doesn’t matter

Some have suggested that Lukaku is not good enough in build-up play – in fact before this game, seven Manchester United players had more touches than him this season. He was only narrowly ahead of goalkeeper David de Gea in those statistics.

But how much of that is Lukaku’s fault, and how much do those statistics really matter? At the Hawthorns, he wasn’t on the ball an awful lot at times, but that was more because of a lack of service than because of the Belgian’s own performance. When he did get the ball, he won aerial battles – not a given against West Bromwich Albion, who are notoriously good in the air – and generally laid the ball off well to continue attacks. He also provided a neat reverse pass to play in Jesse Lingard for a second-half shot that was saved by Ben Foster.

It should also be remembered that Lukaku had similar statistics last season: he had an excellent campaign with Everton, despite seven of his Toffees teammates having more touches during the season.

He’s provided four Premier League assists this term and both his general play and his goal tally will benefit from Paul Pogba’s imminent return from suspension. Lukaku is at his best in fast-flowing attacks, rather than slow build-up play. United’s attacking play has been too slow at times in recent seasons, a hangover from the style that Louis van Gaal employed. Pogba speeds things up, hence Lukaku’s best form came at the start of the season, before the midfielder was injured.

United needed a flat-track bully

Since the beginning of the 2016-17 campaign, Lukaku has now scored 31 goals in 39 appearances against clubs outside the ‘big six’.

Yes, his record against the top clubs is much poorer in comparison and, yes, there’s some truth in the flat-track bully tag he’s been labelled with.

But was a flat-track bully not exactly what United needed, after 11 draws and one defeat last season against sides from outside the big six? With Lukaku, United have scored 39 goals from their first Premier League games this term; last season, they’ d netted only 27 times by the same stage.

His goals have played a significant part in winning United nine points: the difference between their current second place, and struggling to tie down a Champions League spot, something they couldn’t do last term without the aid of the Europa League.

Proven goalscorer

Criticism of Lukaku’s recent dip in form was often so severe, you wondered whether some feared he might never score again.

Yes, he’d netted only one goal in 12 games, and clearly that sequence wasn’t good enough for a club like Manchester United. But a cursory glance at his career statistics made it glaringly obvious that his recent poor run was an exception rather than the rule. Lukaku has always scored goals regularly, and he always will score goals regularly.

Even with that recent poor run, he still has 20 goals for club and country this season in just 29 games. He’s scored three goals in his last four matches, and hit an astonishing 16 in 13 games at the start of the campaign.

Yes, he made two mistakes against Manchester City, but his career at Manchester United will be judged on his ability to score goals, not his ability to defend corners. In 2012-13, he scored 17 goals for West Brom, including that hat-trick against Ferguson’s United. In 2013-14, he scored 16 goals for Everton. In 2014-15, he scored 20. In 2015-16, he scored 25. In 2016-17, he scored 26. In 2017-18, he has 15 for United and we’re not even at the halfway point yet. Not bad for a player whose ability is supposedly in doubt.

-This story originally appeared on FourFourTwo.co.za