Decidedly, the adventure of Big Rom’ at Chelsea is damn eventful. Just like the relationship he has with his coach. Thomas Tuchel did not hesitate to scold his striker after the defeat of his flock against the ogre citizen (1-0) on Saturday.
Two days after these criticisms, the coach was again present at a press conference to discuss Tuesday’s meeting against Brighton. And a question about Lukaku somewhat annoyed him. A journalist wanted to know how to put the Devil in the best possible conditions. “In my opinion, this is not the right question or the right approach”, replied Tuchel. “Romelu is a key player and we want him to be even more so. But football is a team sport. So you don’t need ten players serving one. It’s not Chelsea. And this is not the football we play”, he decided.
Is Lukaku too isolated?
In other words, the collective takes precedence over the rest. Nothing surprising in itself. What worries more concerns the technical relationship he has with other players. Against City, he seemed incredibly isolated against Laporte and Stones. “Football these days is all about the connection between players. I think there is a very strong one with Mason Mount and Mateo Kovacic”, said Thomas Tuchel. “They look for each other and understand each other. The connection, it is worked. We had matches where Romelu was fully involved in the different actions. But against City, he was too isolated. There will still be other meetings like the one -this.”
Problem: the Croatian was well on the pitch while the Englishman was on the bench. For 70 minutes, he exchanged very little with Hakim Ziyech and Christian Pulisic, the two attacking players who were to support the Red Devil.
After a thunderous start. Romelu Lukaku is therefore struggling to convince on the side of Stamford Bridge. And not everything is necessarily his fault. If he had criticized Big Rom’hot, Thomas Tuchel quickly returned to his remarks. “I wanted to criticize our performance in the opposing half. Because we had eight or nine conversion chances. But we didn’t take advantage of them. I’m unhappy because we could have had a lot more chances.”
This Saturday, he especially missed a big chance in the second half when the score was 0-0. An action that could have been decisive. “It’s not a problem to miss opportunities like this”, announced the former PSG coach at a press conference. “Everyone wants to score on every big chance. Of course, you don’t get many in big games. You need a bit of luck and composure.”
Hopefully the Red Devils’ all-time leading scorer will be more inspired in front of goal against the Seagulls. The question today is above all whether he will start against Leandro Trossard and company.
