Romelu Lukaku interview: Thomas Tuchel responds to ‘unhelpful noise’ after striker’s jibes at his management

Chelsea head coach Thomas Tuchel has downplayed suggestions by striker Romelu Lukaku in two separate interviews that he is unhappy with his part in the coach’s plans. But he admitted that reports of the player’s comments have created “unhelpful noise”.

The Belgium forward, who joined Chelsea last summer from Internazionale for £97.5million, told Sky Sport Italy in an interview that took place three weeks ago but surfaced this week: “I’m not happy with the situation at Chelsea. Tuchel has chosen to play with another system.”

Reports since then in Italy have even claimed that Chelsea could sell the player in the forthcoming transfer window. Lukaku also said after the 3-1 victory away to Aston Villa last weekend that he had spoken to Tuchel and “I told him [Tuchel] that I am multi-dimensional. It is about having clarity.”

Tuchel could have done without any added controversy ahead of the match against Liverpool at Stamford Bridge, which will no doubt be widely regarded as an eliminator for the unofficial role of closest pursuers to Manchester City.

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But the German pointed in rebuttal to the key part that Lukaku has played in Chelsea’s past two games, when he scored on his return to the team after illness as a substitute at Villa Park and again on Wednesday when he started the 1-1 draw at home to Brighton. And he insisted that the player had not expressed any unhappiness to him.

“We don’t like it because it brings noise that we do not need, it is not helpful,” Tuchel said. “But we don’t want to make more of it than it is. I don’t feel him unhappy, the exact opposite, that is why it is a surprise.

“If it’s an interview from an important player, I understand the process. That’s why it’s a lot of noise, not only a little bit. But we can take the time to try to understand what’s going on because it does not reflect his daily behaviour here. We will do it openly, as I think the relationship has always been.”

On the substance of the various reported claims by Lukau, Tuchel added: “He said we changed the system, but if you do the work you will find not a lot of system changes, if you find any.

“[Selling Lukaku] is clearly not my object and I will not comment at all. On the second point, the suggestion [after the Villa game] comes that the chat was that he was unhappy about how we used him – and that was not the chat. I have chats with a lot of players, how we want them to be in position, where they should be. This is an absolutely super-normal chat and we have it with Romelu.

“We have a [media] discussion now where it seems that we benched him because other players suited better our style of playing. But Romelu played when he came, then he got injured, then he caught Covid. And when he came back from Covid he played with no training at Villa and further with no training here [against Brighton].

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“That’s why I’m surprised and I don’t enter in these discussions ending like ‘There’s something going on.’ Because there’s absolutely zero ‘going on’. I don’t need to understand why he did it, and I do not have to. I don’t have a reason, and I don’t go into chats and think ‘Did he mean it another way?’ We have zero problem.

“Okay, he gave an interview, so maybe he has a problem and he needs to speak up. I don’t have one.”

Asked about possible repercussions on squad harmony, Tuchel said: “It’s not necessary to have harmony and love each other. It can be good to be on the edge.”

The best way forward for Lukaku, he added, was “training, training, playing, training, playing, training, sleeping, eating good, training, playing, drinking a lot of water, sleep, train – and don’t give interviews.”

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