- May 17, 2016
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I think it’s down to personality. Drogba had arrogance and confidence to go with his skills. Mitrovic has skills and is a hard bastard to go with it. Lukaku is skilful enough, and athletic, but looks a bit of a bottler. It’s what held Heskey back, too.
I'd agree with that but what I will say is Drogba's legacy is a little odd.
Drogba was not actually that prolific. He only broke the 20 goal mark in a PL season twice. To put into context Kane has done it four times already. And the two seasons he did were the only times he passed 20 goals in all competitions.
What made Drogba stand out were these three factors:
1) An incredible big game player
2) A fantastic all round game.
3) Moments of brilliance
Drogba didn't have to be prolific for teams to be shitting themselves up against him. He bullied defenders, worked hard for the team, had good intelligence to hold the ball up and get team mates involved with clever link-up. He had the presence and confidence to alleviate pressure. He also was a diving bastard.
Then factor in the fact he scored all types of goals. Volleys, headers, free kicks, long range, power, finesse.
I'd have a guess that Lukaku has a better strike rate in terms of goals per game. That's normal with the evolution of football. 20 years ago a 1 in 2 record was the gold standard but now we have players almost going at a goal a game. But football has much more nuances to it than the data sheet allows and that's why Drogba was considered world class in spite of his stats whereas others like Lukaku still have the jury out whether he's up to the standard of being in the elite.