Lukaku’s goal drought is just of distant concern for Tuchel

THOMAS TUCHEL has insisted he has no worries over ‘unselfish’ Romelu Lukaku’s six games without scoring for Chelsea.

Ben Chilwell’s sweet half-volley just before half-time gave the Blues a 1-0 win at Brentford on Saturday but they were indebted to a wonderful goalkeeping performance from Edouard Mendy for their three points.

Striker Lukaku (pictured), Chelsea’s £98million record signing, was hardly in the game but did see an effort chalked off for offside after tucking away Timo Werner’s cross.

‘I am not concerned as I felt him a bit tired, and then isolated because we were defending too deep as a block,’ said Blues manager Tuchel.

‘Altogether we produced a very strong 60 to 75 minutes, including Romelu and Timo. Both of them, Romelu and Timo, were too far away to help us escape the pressure. That was the problem but I have no concerns. Normally the best thing is that he scores but he is very unselfish at the moment, looking for Timo in good situations. And we had him in the situation (to score), it was a close offside decision.’

Mendy made four stunning saves to thwart Thomas Frank’s rampaging Bees, the best at the death as he tipped over the bar from Christian Norgaard’s excellent overhead kick. Norgaard said: ‘The keeper saw it well and made a great save. He was having a really good game and it was like he got bigger and bigger throughout the last 20 minutes of the game. It will drop for us next time I’m sure.

‘In the second half, I thought we were on top of the game. So I guess you could say one half each.

‘We went toe-to-toe with one of the best teams in Europe, like we did against Liverpool (a recent 3-3 draw), so a lot of confidence can be taken from the game.’