Sulky star blew it but laid blame elsewhere
How it all went wrong for Lukaku at Chelsea
The warning signs were evident soon enough and would have sent a familiar chill through Chelsea’s corridors of power. It was late September and Romelu Lukaku’s former Inter Milan boss Antonio Conte, working on Italian TV as a pundit, had watched the Belgium striker toil without success in a defeat at Juventus.
Chelsea, he concluded, had yet to figure out how to get the best from their £97.5million record signing, a destructive force who had terrorised Serie A under Conte and led Inter to the title in 2021.
A few days later, back at the training ground in Surrey, Thomas Tuchel did not dispute this. ‘I do not feel offended,’ said the Blues boss. ‘If you watch this game, he is right. They isolated him. They did it good, in their style… but it’s not a general problem.’
It quickly became one, however, as more opponents came up with plans to isolate Lukaku and neutralise Chelsea. Tuchel’s team lost their intensity, energy and fluency of movement, the hallmarks of their Champions League triumph, achieved with Kai havertz at centre forward. And, as Tuchel tweaked for solutions, he lost some of the solidity at the back.
As ever, there were other factors in play but the German soon began to suspect that Chelsea in the short term might be better without Lukaku up front, although this was muddied at the time by an ankle injury and illness, which ruled him out.
There had been similar conclusions drawn about the young Lukaku in his first spell at Stamford Bridge. The more intricate the football, the less effective he was. And he was unable or unwilling to alter a style that had served him so well up to that point.
This time, his opinion was entrenched by two glorious years at Inter. Lukaku scored 42 goals in 58 appearances for club and country in 2020- 21 and, at a Belgium press conference during euro 2020, pronounced himself on the same level as the world’s greatest players.
A confidence bordering on arrogance is not necessarily a bad thing for a striker. The burden of expectation can weigh heavily on a fragile mind. When he returned to Chelsea, it seemed as if he was the finished article: a genuine world star, mature, intelligent and articulate off the pitch, prolific on it.
hence the fee and the salary — in the region of £325,000 a week. But footballers are still human, so there is always risk and after the pride came the fall. Confidence drained as he lost the boss’s trust. his sulky attitude did not go down well with anyone at Chelsea, not just Tuchel. Lukaku sought to blame others. he grumbled about tactics and openly pined for a return to Inter in that infamous interview with Sky Italia, filmed weeks earlier and which ultimately proved the catalyst for his exit when broadcast in January.
his view seemed to be that Chelsea knew the type of player they were signing, he scored goals in Italy and they should play to his strengths.
except Chelsea already had superstar players, and their strengths and weaknesses had to be considered. Tuchel played with a back three to protect Thiago Silva, for instance — brilliant but 37 and no longer able to cover the ground so readily.
Things became worse rather than better after the interview. Tuchel dropped Lukaku, tried to clear the air and was supportive in public. But the goals did not flow and public criticism grew, both in the media and in the stands at Chelsea, where fans suspected he was giving up.
They recalled how Didier Drogba spluttered through his first season. A costly signing from Marseille in 2004, Drogba did not settle and was regularly in the French press yearning for the comfort of his former club.
Jose Mourinho would tell him to go back to France if he could not hack it at the top, at a club where everyone was a champion. Drogba dug in, stayed for eight years and later returned. his determination eclipsed his self- doubt and he became a Chelsea legend.
Although Lukaku cites Drogba as his boyhood hero, his story is destined for a different ending. he will not be digging in. he will not be sticking around to improve.
Such was the 29-year-old’s desperation to get out that he appears to have taken matters into his own hands to instigate the move back to Inter, offering to take a pay cut to return to the comfort of Serie A. Chelsea’s new regime under Todd Boehly have taken a financial hit to back the judgment of Tuchel by eradicating his biggest problem in the dressing room and providing him with a clean slate.
That should encourage Blues supporters as long as recruitment does the same and supplies the head coach with the type of players he wants and ends this trend of disastrous record signings.
For if Lukaku made mistakes and must shoulder some blame for this failed venture, then someone at Chelsea really ought to have known better.
They knew the player well. They knew his attributes and personality. They must have asked Tuchel what he thought before investing such an enormous sum of money.
And they have had their fingers burned before when it comes to a big-money swoop. See Andriy Shevchenko, Fernando Torres, Alvaro Morata or Kepa Arrizabalaga. There are many more examples to be found across two decades when glittering success met extravagant waste.
Perhaps this is the perfect footnote to the era. Romelu Lukaku, the final piece of the jigsaw. The money- no- object signing for the reigning european champions. The man to score the goals to propel them to greater domination. Off on loan for £7m to the place from whence he came.