- June 24, 2022
- Helgi Llozana
From sweetness to bitterness in the blink of an eye
This is a three-part piece so make sure you follow the Chelsea Perspective ,Helgi Llozana and subscribe to the newsletter so that you don’t miss part two and three.
In the aftermath of the UEFA Super Cup success, Chelsea announced the club-record signing of Romelu Lukaku for £97.5m from Inter Milan. The announcement video encapsulated the initial feelings: A young Lukaku having a school tour at Stamford Bridge, dreaming of playing there one day and finally this seemingly wild dream turning into reality at the second time of asking. Or was it just a premature collective perception?
To be fair, his first few games gave a lot of reasons to be hopeful. Despite the weight of expectations from the fans and pundits, he still delivered convincingly enough against Arsenal, Zenit, and Aston Villa. He did this not only through scoring, but also showing early signs of adapting to a different environment than the one he was used to.
Unfortunately, the positive start was a deceiving mirage which would leave another taste of bitterness after what fans saw from Alvaro Morata and Gonzalo Higuain in previous seasons. Lukaku’s fortunes, mostly dictated by himself, changed 180 degrees on the cold evening of December 29 last year, when a sudden and improper interview granted by him for the Italian media, was released. This interview was reportedly recorded about three weeks prior and the release coincided roughly with Lukaku deactivating his Twitter account. Contents of the interview had a seismic effect on the Chelsea community, startling Chelsea fans worldwide. This was pronounced because many fans were still full of excitement as the Belgian had just returned from a two-month injury spell on the sidelines, and in fact had just scored against Aston Villa and Brighton.
The interview, a mishmash construction of an apology to Inter fans for the unexpected departure; the embarrassing criticism of his own manager for not playing the way he felt was more adaptable; and the deliriant aspiration of dreaming to play for either Barcelona, Real Madrid or Bayern Munich one day, left me speechless. What’s worse though, is that a section of the fanbase tried to justify what he had said, which seemed to be them just clutching at straws.
I understand a moderate level of Italian so I rushed to read the original article carefully. There was nothing abstract in what he had said, everything was crystal clear. He had indirectly dismissed the sunny reception Chelsea fans in the stadium gave him from the onset, and replaced it with dark and heavy clouds full of rain drops.
Despite the turmoil, Thomas Tuchel decided to temporarily end the story in an incredibly diplomatic and clever manner by sidelining him for just a game after the incident. Hence, Lukaku sat out Chelsea’s 2-2 home draw against Liverpool. The situation didn’t improve. In fact, a downward spiral followed.
After a horrendous January, Lukaku’s contribution in the Club World Cup glory produced a glimmer of hope, and understandably so, but it proved to be short-lived. A week after the final in Abu Dhabi, Chelsea played Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park. This game was the nail in the coffin for the Belgium No. 9, because he set an astonishingly bad record of registering only seven touches for the entire 90 minutes he was on the pitch.
Bar a wrongly disallowed goal in the Carabao Cup final, Romelu Lukaku didn’t even bother to turn things around at the club he considered his childhood club. His body language on the pitch was consistently negative and the relationship with the manager had reached breaking point. Although he was initially perceived as the missing piece of the jigsaw by many (myself included), he ended up as the worst transfer in the club’s history. Therefore, his departure will feel like a breath of fresh air. Whoever doesn’t want to be at the club must be shown the door and he, in particular, shouldn’t let the door hit him on his way out.
Look out for Part 2.