Arriving at Chelsea after a very busy summer, Romelu Lukaku returned to Stamford Bridge with a lot of expectations placed on his shoulders.
While he has scored here and there, he certainly hasn’t lived up to his £100m or so price tag, and his performance against Crystal Palace at the weekend raised more than a few eyebrows.
For former footballer Nordin Jbari, who now works as a pundit for RTBF, the struggles the Belgian is currently experiencing at Chelsea are mostly down to Thomas Tuchel.
Basically, Lukaku’s arrival was ‘badly managed’ by the former Paris Saint-Germain manager.
Jbari said: “I’m sorry, but when you go and get Lukaku, a world class star, you need to adapt a bit to him. I’m under the impression that we’re only asking Lukaku to adapt to Chelsea. I’m not saying he doesn’t have to. That’s what makes a great player, but it’s not always easy. I feel that he’s not being put forward enough and not trusted enough.”
He added: “Chelsea and Tuchel need to understand they signed a world class star who’s a goalscoring machine. If it doesn’t work, maybe it’s because the environment isn’t the best for it to work. Short term, it’s Tuchel who needs to take a step towards Lukaku.
“He was the missing link at Chelsea. They lacked this type of striker, this finisher. They now have him and they paid a lot to have him. Tuchel must therefore do everything so that it works.”
That being said, Jbari isn’t too concerned for the Belgium international, because ‘he’s shown a number of times he’s strong mentally’, having had to deal with many critics with the national team over the years and always overcoming them.
Since his return, Lukaku has found the back of the net 10 times in 28 appearances in all competitions for Chelsea.
