Romelu Lukaku is expected to soldier on for José Mourinho

José Mourinho has been busy singing the praises of Romelu Lukaku ahead of Manchester United’s home clash with Southampton and the Red Devils’ boss insists that he will not rest the Belgium international.

Lukaku has been ever-present for United in the Premier League this season but he has only scored 3 times in his last 12 league starts, a statistic that has had a major bearing on our FPL fortunes. Lukaku has donned the armband for us on numerous occasions already this season but his flagging form is reflected in our overall ranking.

Clearly, there is a temptation to say enough is enough but Saturdays visitors, the Saints, are without both first choice full-backs, while influential centre-back Virgil van Dijk is Anfield-bound.

Lukaku therefore retains the armband, for one more week at least! He features prominently in our latest Armband Rankings and just gets the nod despite the strong claims of Roberto Firmino.

Sometimes a bit of common sense is needed, so with that double gameweek on the horizon, the sensible thing to do has to be to preserve that free transfer in order to get as much Spurs/West Ham coverage as possible in GW22 without making wholesale changes. This means that we will be sticking with our current squad for this game round.

Andreas Christensen and Andre Gray were disappointing absentees on Boxing Day, so it’s fingers crossed that both feature over the weekend.

Can Big Rom help us to end the year with a bang or has he run out of gas?