Following the completion of his loan move from Chelsea to West Bromwich Albion, Romelu Lukaku has hit out at the Blues after a season of frustration.
The 19-year-old Belgian has decided to publicly criticise his parent club by saying that he has wasted a year of his career at the Stamford Bridge club, he was quoted in the Daily Mail:
“I couldn’t see myself staying at Chelsea. I sacrificed a year of my career with them and didn’t want to put up with it any more.
“I decided in March I wanted to go out on loan, and told my agent to find me a club. I am relieved to have found a solution.
“On the first day of pre-season I told the manager I wanted to leave.
“Roberto Di Matteo told me I ought to think about Chelsea as there weren’t going to be many other strikers this season, but this is the time for me to think about myself.
“I got sick of watching the others from the bench. I just played 12 games and when I was playing well, they would take me off.
“I lost my hunger for the game over the past year. I won’t beat about the bush – my season at Chelsea went very badly.
As regards getting minutes on the pitch, I wasted my time.”
There will be those that will decide to defend the player (you’re welcome to), but it’s incredibly stupid to publicly slate your employers in any walk of life and I’m guessing there won’t be many sympathy from those that will view Lukaku for playing the victim and giving a sob-story to the press.
Nobody held a gun to Lukaku’s head and made him join Chelsea. He must have known that he would be behind the likes of club legend Didier Drogba and £5om Fernando Torres, as well as Daniel Sturridge, who enjoyed a successful spell on loan at Bolton before Lukaku arrived and made a great start in the first half of last season by finding the net on a regular basis. Salomon Kalou was also about at the time, our ‘super-sub’.
In terms of development, Lukaku is not ready for regular first-team action at a club like Chelsea and on the occasions I saw him play in the reserves, although he did okay, he did not stand out as a player that is on the verge of breaking into the first XI. He probably left Anderlecht a little too soon and but for a registration issue, he would have been loaned out to Stoke last season, which would have been a less pressured environment and an opportunity to gain more experience.
As it was, he had to stick around and play in the reserves for the most part, but still made 12 appearances for the first team. In most of those games he looked poor in front of goal, his touch needs working on and he seemed surprisingly easy to knock off the ball for a big lad. He did however play a great game on the last day of campaign by providing an assist for John Terry against Blackburn.
Now, before you all start saying I am being harsh on the kid and it’s a positive sign that he wants to play, it isn’t the point here. Lukaku has no right to slag off those that pay his wages, especially in public, it’s disrespectful and doesn’t portray either him or the club in a positive light.
Lukaku simply had no right to say what he did and if he was good enough, he would probably have earned more time on the pitch that he did, like Ryan Bertrand, who must have been frustrated by all the times he was shipped out on loan but worked hard and took the opportunity when it came, even earning himself a starting place for Great Britain at the Olympics and selection for Roy Hodgson’s latest England squad.
Lukaku is still a young lad and possesses all the attributes to make it as a centre-forward but he’s not there yet and I doubt the club will be giving up on him any time soon, but he isn’t doing himself any favours with these public displays of poor attitude. It’s not the first signs of sulking we have seen from him as he also refused to hold the Champions League trophy on one of the, if not the, greatest nights in the club’s history because he'”didn’t feel like a winner’. He’s part of the squad, a team, that succeeds and fails together – he just needs to shut up and work in order to earn his place.
Hopefully, this is just poor judgement by a young man and it will eventually be forgiven as long as it’s not a regular occurrence. We all wish him well during his loan spell at West Brom and uses the move as a springboard for launching his career.
What are your thoughts on Lukaku’s words? – Have your say in the comments section below?
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2188582/Romelu-Lukaku-slams-Chelsea.html
The boy is rude, he needs to be taught a lesson. Is he better than Berbertov who got benched for most of last season despite finishing as the league’s top scorer the season before? He did not go abusing ManU, did he? Lukaku should be taught a lesson if he does not publicly apologize!
Rude boy needs to keep his mouth on shut. Blame AVB for his failure to secure first team. To play before Drogba, Torres, or Sturridge is tough enough.
Re you saying we no longer ve a freedom to speech. The things we don’t say out re the things that will eat us up. I think he was man enough to say his mind. Torres did so too and no one crucified him. This is a lad we paid 18m for and with such an amount much is expected and all we did was put him with five mins to go and handed him just one start on the last game of the season. Not fair to me
Torres voiced out in a very matured manner. Besides he cost us £50M and he’s proven while in liverpool which made us Broke English record to get him. We all know torres worth that’s why he’s payed £170,000 a week and moreover he said wat he said to our face unlike lukaku waiting until he’s loaned before airing his view .
I’m all for freedom of speech, Torri. But this isn’t the issue.
If Lukaku has a problem, it’s between him and the club. He’s free to cry to the press if he wants, doesn’t make it right.
Whether the club did right or wrong isn’t the point. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you and you don’t assume you’re above doing what you’ve been asked to do.
There’s plenty of young lads at the club who want to play, most don’t whinge about it and display better maturity and professionalism than Lukaku, like Piazon.
i agree with what you said,but notto be taught a lesson. i think it would only make the matter worse.chelsea cannot be blamed for any youngsters short commings.in every job in this life you copmplain you dont get promoted you work hard and you climb the ladder.i agree he should appologise but only if he wants to.i wish him luck and hope he comes back a better player and a man, not a child who cries when he dont get hes own way
I have got nothing to say to him, just that he need to grow up.
I think Lukaku should shortup and concentrate, because see him as next Drogba. So goodluck kaku
Nobody will defend him he’s excessively rude to say the least,i don’t really know what was going on in his little mind but,was he expecting Drogba,Torres,Sturridge and even Kalou to be on the
bench while he,less than average player should get 38 games?Well,it would take him striking performances to displace any of this players who were already established long before he came.At moment his performances are below average he needs to improve a lot before he could become a regular player in Chelsea first eleven.Let him shut his mouth,try to grow up and improve his game!!
I don’t know y we bought him srzly if uve watched dis guy play u’d think we bought him off football manager, now to d stupid 1 dat couldn’t make d bolton or fulham 1st team and wants to be in cfc’s 1st team stfu kakuta
Lukaku is nothing but an ungrateful vagabond! Did he expect the likes of Drogba, Torres, Kalou and Sturridge to sit on the bench and watch him play when he had absolutely nothing to offer at his age? No matter how small your playing is if you have what to offer you will always do or atleast make some promising attempts which was not the case with him. Anyways! I don’t blame him, i think he is suffering from youthful delinquency. If i were him i’d better keep quiet and improve upon my games.
Lukaku is nothing but an ungrateful vagabond! Did he expect the likes of Drogba, Torres, Kalou and Sturridge to sit on the bench and watch him play when he had absolutely nothing to offer at his age? No matter how small your playing time on the pitch is, if you have what to offer you will always do or atleast make some promising attempts which was not the case with him. Anyways! I don’t blame him, i think he is suffering from youthful delinquency. If i were him i’d better keep quiet and improve upon my games.