Could Chelsea’s response to the Belgian striker’s interview signify the end of player power at the club?
In the midst of a run of matches in which he missed out on playing time owing both to being stricken with COVID and not having fully recovered enough to play the full ninety when he became available, Romelu Lukaku gave an interview to Sky Italia.
For any other player in the Chelsea side, this might not have been a problem. But Lukaku is of Belgian descent, and most Chelsea supporters will be all too familiar with the ways in which former Belgian players had made fools of both themselves and the club during international break press-duty. There was Thibault Courtois’ public flirtations with Real Madrid and his ensuing attempts to woo former teammate Eden Hazard to Valdebebas training ground. Then there was Hazard’s misty-eyed nostalgia for his idol Zinedane Zidane and his acknowledgement that he’d love to play under the Frenchman, before ultimately departing for Madrid.
With all this in mind, Chelsea fans could have been forgiven for being apprehensive upon Lukaku’s signing this past summer, despite his expression of love towards the club he supported in his youth and the notion of his returning to attend to “unfinished business.” This apprehension was shown to be warranted in the wake of the interview in which Lukaku invited an Italian journalist to his home so he could at once flirt with his passionate ex, Inter Milan, while slagging off his long-term partner (the 28 year-old signed a five-year contract with the Blues with an annual average salary of £16,900,000.)
Having got off the ground with a running start despite his late addition, Lukaku initially delivered with goals — notably in a London-derby against midtable minnows, Arsenal — but then struggled to find the back of the net before sustaining an injury in a Champions League tilt against Juventus. Lukaku’s return to fitness was stymied by a case of COVID that saw him endure a further spell on the sidelines, and his return to fitness wasn’t rewarded with an immediate berth in the starting lineup. Given Thomas Tuchel’s hard-pressing, possession style, the Chelsea manager could have been forgiven for opting for more physically fit players to lead the line while Lukaku worked his way back to fighting shape, but the Belgian obviously felt otherwise.
In an interview in which he attempted to curry favour with Inter Milan after leaving the club in a cloud of discontent, Lukaku also called Tuchel’s choice in tactics into question, saying, “I think the boss has decided to play a different formation but I have to stick at it and get on with it professionally.”
Having previously stated he likes to play on the counter with his face to goal, his decision to come to Chelsea might be seen as an odd one with this in mind – the West Londoners don’t play on the counter as Inter did, and it was always understood that he’d serve as a focal point in a possession-heavy 3-4-3 with wingback’s whipping crosses in.
The club’s reaction was swift and signaled a possible end to the player power that always left managers on the chopping block. Lukaku was fined a sizable sum, and Tuchel dropped him for a high-profile tilt against Liverpool. With the rest of the squad seemingly behind Tuchel and the board’s expression of discontent, Chelsea seem to have finally kicked the corrosive habit of axing managers when things got tough or high profile players expressed their angst. With his tail between his legs, Lukaku apologized to fans and promised to fight for the club. All will be forgiven by his manager and the fans as long as he delivers on that promise.