It appears that we have reached the point of no return for Romelu Lukaku at Chelsea, with the Belgian set to remain away from Stamford Bridge for the foreseeable future.
That is most likely to be at Inter, where he is currently on loan, but the two clubs will have to sit down to negotiate that regardless.
There was potential hope that the arrival of Graham Potter at Chelsea could change matters for Lukaku, but that doesn’t appear to be the case.
Gazzetta dello Sport have a big article on the matter on Thursday, explaining the player ‘could stay much longer than a season’ at Inter, but ‘the final decision will be officially made by the end of the season’ when the sides meet to discuss it.
Either way, ‘the signals coming from London say that the new ownership of the Blues has no interest at the moment in recovering the striker’, which therefore opens a door for the Serie A side to negotiate a permanent deal.
Lukaku, down his end, is said to have ‘moved on’ from Chelsea, and while the arrival of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang first looked like a signing for Thomas Tuchel, he is becoming Potter’s ‘perfect centre-forward’.
It’s added that Todd Boehly had a chat with Jay-Z, ‘his longtime friend and business partner’, who owns Roc Nation, the agency that represent Lukaku, with the rapper suggesting that moving the Belgium back to Italy ‘was the best solution for everyone’.
While there is still time for everything to change, it seems Lukaku’s time at Chelsea is now a ‘closed chapter’, and the idea is that the Blues and Inter will sit down to extend that loan for next year.
What happens beyond that, we’ll have to wait and see.
