Manchester United striker Romelu Lukaku went into Saturday’s Premier League clash with Crystal Palace looking to continue his superb start to the season.
In his nine appearances for United since joining them from Everton over the summer, the Belgium international had scored 10 times, including a brace in Wednesday’s 4-1 Champions League victory over CSKA Moscow.
Here, Press Association Sport assesses how Lukaku fared at Old Trafford as United thrashed Palace 4-0.
Lukaku’s first attacking contribution of note was to send a cross from the left into the danger zone, where it was put behind for a corner by Mamadou Sakho.
A subsequent attempted delivery from the right was intercepted by Jason Puncheon’s handball, and near the end of the first half he flicked on a Juan Mata cross towards Marcus Rashford, whose shot was blocked by Wayne Hennessey.
There were a couple of moments before the break where it looked as if Lukaku might add to his goal tally, with one seeing Hennessey come out to beat him to the ball and another Henrikh Mkhitaryan mess up a pass as he tried to send him through.
After the interval he had a shot deflect behind early on, then hesitated in a promising position, and it looked as if it would prove a rare goalless outing for him when he dragged a shot wide in the 71st minute where it appeared he really should have scored.
But he was not be denied in the end, getting on the scoresheet four minutes from time with a simple close-range finish set up by substitute Anthony Martial.
Fairly quiet for most of the contest, but this man just cannot stop scoring.
His strike here saw him match Andrew Cole’s club record of seven goals in his first seven Premier League games for United.
