Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel did not defend Romelu Lukaku when asked about bizarre new record
According to the Daily Star, Romelu Lukaku now has a bizarre record to his name that Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel isn’t very proud about.
After a successful spell in the Club World Cup triumph, fans were hoping that Lukaku left his agony behind and was getting to his best. However, the night at Selhurst Park turned into a humiliating one for the Blues striker.
Lukaku played the complete 90 minutes in yesterday’s clash between Chelsea and Crystal Palace. However, according to OptaStats, he only touched the ball seven times in the entire game, with one coming from kick-off, a new record in the Premier League since the stats started being recorded.
The ex-Inter Milan man has just five goals to his name in the PL and is clearly struggling to find his feet again in the PL. After looking at his performance against Palace, even Thomas Tuchel did not defend him.
What next for Lukaku?
When asked about the record in the post-match press conference, the German manager seemed to be out of words. He agreed that the Belgian striker had very minimal impact on the game and that his lack of involvement doesn’t reflect poorly on the other players.
“I’m not so sure I have a good answer on the question. I don’t know what it says, but obviously, he was not involved and could not make a point. I’m not so sure it says much about us in general.”
Lukaku’s injury pushed our German manager to make some big decisions up front; one of them being playing Kai Havertz in the centre forward role. The results didn’t always go in our favour, and our injury and Covid crisis in the last couple of months really impacted our push for the PL title.
Lukaku and the Blues had a major fallout earlier this campaign, when Lukaku went out of his way to praise former club Inter Milan and didn’t speak too highly about his new club, as per Sky Italia.
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Tuchel’s comments could hint at his frustration with Lukaku’s performances. And it wouldn’t be a surprise, given we dished out a club-record sum to bring him in after already having Timo Werner in our team last summer. We now play Lille in the UCL on Tuesday night in a crucial round of 16 game, where Lukaku would look to regain his scoring touch after a decent CWC campaign.