Despite the appointment of Graham Potter as Chelsea manager, there is no change in Romelu Lukaku’s situation at Stamford Bridge, with the striker seemingly focused on the project at Inter Milan.
What’s the word?
That is according to transfer guru Fabrizio Romano, who took to his column for Caught Offside to issue the update.
The journalist has played down any chance of the Belgian’s return to his parent club, with no contact between the two parties at current. As such, the Italian’s current feeling is that Lukaku will stay with Inter next season as well.
In his column for Caught Offside, Romano said: “Nothing has changed between Romelu Lukaku and Chelsea. The point is the player, he’s only focused on Inter project and he hopes to continue there also next season.
“No one called him on the Chelsea side, so I think the comeback is not a priority for both club and player.”
A disappointing claim
This claim surrounding Lukaku is disappointing for both Chelsea and the player, who was once dubbed a “monster truck” by the Twitter admins at The Sun Football in context of their Star Cars thread, given his powerful 6 foot 4 presence.
Having returned to the west London club in a sensational £97.5m deal last summer, the £350k-per-week Belgian failed to deliver the desired impact, which was also hindered by some of his antics off the pitch.
These antics cost Lukaku valuable game-time and saw him make just 16 league starts under Thomas Tuchel, who clearly lost trust in the player and opted to play Kai Havertz up top instead.
However, following the appointment of Potter, some might have thought that the Belgian would have been given a fresh start, especially with his ability as a traditional target man, having chipped in with an emphatic 35 attacking returns in the form of 24 goals and 11 assists across 36 Serie A appearances in 2020/21.
Whether or not the situation changes over the next few months remains to be seen, but the signs are not promising at this current time, with an elite-level striker with 335 goals at club and international level seemingly being disregarded by Chelsea once more.
