Against a backdrop bedecked with his Chelsea number nine shirt, it was an odd setting for Romelu Lukaku, four months on from his Inter departure, to be sitting down with Sky Italy to reminisce about the bond he once shared with half of the San Siro faithful.
There is no immediate cause for concern. The £97.5m striker – even amidst the profligacy of the Abramovich era, a club record fee – is not going to pack up and leave half a season into his second coming at Stamford Bridge.
What his sudden expressions of discontent – his revelation that he is “not happy with the situation”, specifically that “the coach has chosen to play with another system” – have done is set alarm bells ringing at the very moment in which Thomas Tuchel had subtlety called for unity.
Tuchel’s own volatile interview on Wednesday evening after the 1-1 draw with Brighton, in which he claimed it would be “stupid” even to consider Chelsea part of the title race, may have been an attempt at creating a siege mentality. “Everything is against us.”
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Every EPL and EFL club affected by New Year postponements inc. Fulham, Sunderland and Leicester30 December, 2021That ought not to have been a cue for his talisman, man of the match upon his return against Aston Villa and needed more than ever with Thiago Silva, Reece James, Ben Chilwell all absent, to embark on a thinly-veiled attempt at player power. In fact, Lukaku had already done the interview days earlier, but the damage is belated.
“I think the coach has chosen to play with another system, I just have to not give up and continue to work and be a professional,” he said. “I am not happy with the situation, but I am a worker and I must not give up.” Full marks for attitude there.
Then came the suggestions that a return to Inter might one day be on the cards.
“I don’t think any of it should have happened the way it did,” he added. “The way I left Inter and the way I communicated with the Inter fans. I’m annoyed about that because it’s not the right time now but it wasn’t the right time when I left either.
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What seems to have irked Lukaku is a system in which his role has never been clearly defined. The Belgian has been both lone front man and part of an out-of-sorts duo alongside Timo Werner.
The most common has seen him flanked by two midfielders in behind him – typically Mason Mount and one other.
For all Tuchel’s willingness to experiment, his tactical approach has not exactly been revolutionised as he approaches his one-year anniversary in west London. It can hardly have come as a shock to Lukaku, but at a time when his manager is craving leadership from his senior players, calling on them to deliver more and more in the most pressing of circumstances, his words could not have been more ill-timed.
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