🇧🇪 Romelu Lukaku

[Mário César 1,274]

PSG announced Messi first than Chelsea lukaku

[YorkshireBlue 3,277]

5 minutes ago, Mário César said:

PSG announced Messi first than Chelsea lukaku

Thats because its straight forward.... how much u want messi.... erm 1 mill a week.... sound sign here done.

[DH1988 1,348]

Feel like we are intentionally waiting to announce, otherwise it gets lost in the Messi ether. Rom's return and the associated narrative is actually really good etc. Makes sense to me.

[Blue Armour 4,442]

2 hours ago, DH1988 said:

Feel like we are intentionally waiting to announce, otherwise it gets lost in the Messi ether. Rom's return and the associated narrative is actually really good etc. Makes sense to me.

More like, we got a super cup match tomorrow and we don't need anything to distract from that right now.

Lukaku won't even be part of that match, so it makes sense to wait. 

[Clockwork 1,794]

10 hours ago, MoroccanBlue said:

Except it is when you consider what is amortized for the fiscal year. 

Huh? A portion of all those signings fees are amortized this fiscal year. If you understand amortization, it strengthens my argument. A players transfer fee is amoritized over the length of their contract. 

[Jype 6,398]

6 hours ago, Clockwork said:

Huh? A portion of all those signings fees are amortized this fiscal year. If you understand amortization, it strengthens my argument. A players transfer fee is amoritized over the length of their contract. 

Sure, last years signings amount to roughly £42M/year in amortisation (all players bought for fees signed a five year contract).

The last financial statement released by the club covers the 19/20 season, where player amortisation was roughly 130M and last year around 40M (see above) was added to that. There were also some sales which take that figure down a little bit due to getting their amortisation value off the books (Morata being the biggest one) not to mention releasing some players on free transfers whose yearly amortisation value was significant (Pedro and Willian total around £10M/year). Overall I'd say last years signings didn't increase the total amortisation by more than £20M/year compared to the previous season.

The club's business model is dependent on the occasional sales (ie. Hazard being sold for £100M and club's overall profit being around £30M for the year, partly due to covid reductions of course) but I'd say things are quite well balanced now and it's not wrong at all to say that the sales this year go a long way towards signing Lukaku. After all, the club need cash in the bank to pay the actual transfer fee for the player and with Inter's dire financial situation I'd guess they've demanded a payment up front for most of the total fee. Selling players gets you that cash.

[Vesper 30,185]

Less defending, more assists: How Lukaku has evolved since leaving Chelsea

https://theathletic.com/2756664/2021/08/09/less-defending-more-assists-how-lukaku-has-evolved-since-leaving-Chelsea/

With less than a week to go until the start of the new Premier League season, Chelsea appear to finally have their new No 9 — and it’s a familiar face.

Romelu Lukaku is on his way back at Stamford Bridge almost exactly 10 years on from his first arrival as a raw but prodigiously gifted 18-year-old. This time, he will have superstar billing, a club-record price tag and the knowledge he will be afforded the chance to prove himself able to spearhead the team he supported as a boy.

It has been a long and, at times, strange road to get to this point.

Lukaku left Chelsea for Everton a frustrated figure in the summer of 2014 after prolific loan seasons with them and West Bromwich Albion, the signing of Diego Costa having crystallised Jose Mourinho’s lack of belief in the imposing young Belgian’s readiness to take up the mantle of his idol Didier Drogba.

Three years later, it was Chelsea’s turn to feel snubbed, burned by Mino Raiola and out-manoeuvred by Manchester United in their attempt to bring him back to west London from Goodison Park. That failure forced them down the Alvaro Morata path, to the misfortune of everyone involved.

For Lukaku, the last four years have yielded disappointment at United and reinvigoration at Inter Milan; for Chelsea, they have yielded no goalscorer in Lukaku’s class. Yet despite them crying out for a truly elite No 9, the window for a reunion appeared to have closed. Erling Haaland emerged as the striker that every “superclub” owner, including Roman Abramovich, coveted beyond all others. Inter were revived as a genuine Serie A powerhouse by Antonio Conte, while Thomas Tuchel still managed to lead Chelsea to Champions League final triumph in May with a less conventional attack.

The stars only aligned in recent weeks, with Borussia Dortmund’s defiance keeping Haaland out of the market and Inter’s financial crisis pushing Lukaku to reconsider his prior insistence that he would stay in Italy. As soon as the door creaked open, Chelsea director Marina Granovskaia moved with trademark speed.

Chelsea will be paying a higher price for Lukaku than they would have needed to in 2017, but they are also arguably getting a better player than if they’d signed him then — or at the very least a slightly different one.

The Athletic takes a closer look at how Lukaku has evolved his game…

---

Lukaku returns to Chelsea on the back of the two most prolific scoring seasons of his career: 34 goals in 51 appearances across all competitions for Inter in 2019-20, followed by 30 goals in 44 appearances in 2020-21. His record was boosted by being the team’s regular penalty taker — he took 15 of them during his two years at San Siro, successfully converting them all — but as you can see in the graphic below, he has reliably offered at least 0.5 goals per 90 minutes (or one every two games) in all but one of his nine full seasons in the Premier League and Serie A:

Key to that consistency is the fact that Lukaku is an impressively versatile finisher. Of his 18 goals from open play in Serie A in 2020-21, 10 were scored with his favoured left foot and six with his right. Defenders don’t have the security of knowing that they can shade him to one side or the other, since he is capable of finding the net from a wide range of angles and positions inside the penalty area.

His intelligent movement in the box ensured a steady diet of tap-ins, feeding on low crosses and cutbacks from Conte’s wing-backs. Achraf Hakimi, another player Chelsea were keen to sign this summer, was his most frequent supplier.

In addition, Lukaku continues to make great use of the physical attributes that have always given him the potential to be undeniable in certain situations. His unique blend of size, skill and speed make him an absolute nightmare to deal with when isolated against a defender, as demonstrated here during a 6-2 win over Crotone in January.

Lukaku reads the flight of the dropping ball better than his opponent and pins him to his back as he flicks the ball around him with the outside of his left foot…

… engineering a great scoring chance for himself with remarkable ease. He takes his time, sits the goalkeeper down with a fake and then finds the bottom corner:

Here, against Borussia Monchengladbach in December, he receives the ball in a mildly threatening position, but with plenty still to do to get near Yann Sommer’s goal:

Lukaku drives into the penalty area, uses his body to create separation from his defender, and hits a low shot through the gap and into the bottom corner before anyone else can react:

The starting position in which he receives the ball is one of his trademarks.

It is a technique he has been developing for years, as he demonstrated to Jamie Carragher for Sky Sports during his Everton days.

In the Europa League mini-tournament bubble that concluded the 2019-20 season, he scored virtually a mirror image of the same goal, this time driving into the box on his left…

… throwing his shoulder into the defender to create space, then firing into the bottom far corner:

Earlier in 2019-20, Sassuolo made the mistake of allowing Inter to play the ball in to Lukaku’s feet on the edge of their penalty area, with only one defender between him and goal:

Pinning his opponent at his back, Lukaku simply flicks the ball to his left, spins away and finishes clinically with his right foot:

Lukaku wasn’t a frequent scorer of headed goals at Inter, but the ones he did score were of the quality that suggested he could weaponise it more regularly in a high-crossing team.

Again in that 2019-20 season, there was this leap to re-direct Nicolo Barella’s delivery into the top corner beyond Gianluigi Donnarumma and seal a huge win in the Milan derby:

There was also this smart glancing effort to guide Ashley Young’s in-swinging cross inside the far post and set Inter on their way to a 2-1 home win over Sassuolo in April:

Perhaps the most startling element of Lukaku’s performance last season was his significant growth as a playmaker.

He registered 11 assists to go with his 24 goals in Serie A, and the underlying metrics suggest there was nothing particularly fluky about it. His 7.8 expected assists (xA) — which measure the likelihood that a given pass will become an assist — indicated a level of over-performance, but not a huge one.

In the below graphic, you can see that Lukaku averaged the highest number of assists per 90 minutes (0.34) of his career last season — one every three games:

Lukaku formed a brilliantly intuitive strike partnership with Lautaro Martinez under Conte.

They frequently created chances for one another, either directly with the ball at their feet or via intelligent movement. Here, in the fifth minute of the Milan derby in February, Lukaku peels out to the right flank and finds the head of his Argentinian team-mate with a perfect in-swinging cross:

A few days earlier, in a 3-1 home win over Lazio, he carries the ball into a shooting position in the penalty area but, realising that two opposing defenders and the goalkeeper have converged on him to leave Martinez open, he slips a pass between them to give his mate a tap-in. This decision is even more commendable when you consider Lukaku was on a hat-trick at the time:

Lukaku’s ability to make the most of transition situations, often in tandem with Martinez, was fundamental to Inter’s attacking success under Conte.

It also resulted in several spectacular solo goals, including this one to cap a 3-0 rout of Milan in February. He picks up the ball just inside the opposition half with two defenders still to beat and only Hakimi in support…

… but rather than lay the ball wide and then attack the box, he instead drives at the backpedalling defenders before jinking onto his left foot and hitting a low shot just inside Donnarumma’s near post:

Here, in a 3-1 win over Napoli in the 2019-20 season, he capitalises on a slip to run onto the ball in an even deeper position, this time with Martinez alongside him:

The two men effectively run across each other, with Martinez dragging his marker to the right while Lukaku drives to his left, squeezing an unstoppable shot past two defenders and in off the post:

As shown below by Lukaku’s smarterscout ratings over time, ball carrying formed a much bigger part of his overall game last season than at any previous point in his top-level career, despite the fact that he also received the ball more frequently in the opposition box (receptions in the penalty area) and played a much more significant role in his team’s build-up play (link-up passing):

As the graphic above illustrates, Lukaku was not tasked with much defensive work by Conte (tackles, fouls, clearances and blocks). His 9.1 pressures per 90 minutes in Serie A last season would have ranked comfortably below all of Chelsea’s attackers in the Premier League, though differences in team style must be factored into such comparisons. There is no reason to doubt that Lukaku could adapt to a higher workload off the ball and, considering how involved he was in the recruitment process, Tuchel must be confident of that, too.

Lukaku’s first touch and close control were questioned relentlessly throughout his time at United, but most of his problems there sprang from the fact that he was miscast by his old Chelsea boss Mourinho as a target man in the Drogba mould, and subsequently tasked with battling for the ball in the air against physical centre-backs with little by way of support. At Inter, he enjoyed a better diet of service and more readily available team-mates — Martinez, the marauding Hakimi or midfield runners.

In this more favourable context, Lukaku’s link-up play did show positive signs. Here, against Cagliari, he protects the ball in the box until the perfect moment to slide Hakimi in down the line, and the move results in a far-post tap-in for Matteo Darmian (out of shot):

Here, against Sassuolo, he drops back into midfield, turns with the ball and plays a pinpoint crossfield pass perfectly into the stride of Young on the left:

And here against Genoa, he gets the ultimate reward for making the effort to involve himself in Inter’s play.

The move begins when he drops just outside the box and stretches to lay the ball off to Barella:

Lukaku’s defender follows Barella and the Belgian takes advantage, spinning in behind to race onto the return pass:

He then executes a deft jink onto his left foot to lose one final opponent and set himself up for a shot, which he arrows high into the far corner:

Tuchel does not typically love fixed No 9s, so Lukaku’s willingness to move around in search of space, carry the ball from deeper positions and combine selflessly with team-mates will all be appealing to him.

Don’t be surprised to see him pop up on the right flank — where he has frequently been deployed by Roberto Martinez for Everton and more recently Belgium — and give the likes of Timo Werner and Kai Havertz the chance to run into central areas at times.

---

Lukaku might not be quite as exciting a striker acquisition as Haaland would have been, given the Norwegian sensation’s extraordinary production at such a young age. He certainly isn’t the most exotic choice; in some ways it is surprising to realise he is only 28, considering that we have been watching him go up against seasoned defenders in major European leagues since he was 17.

But there can be no denying that he presents an elite answer to Chelsea’s most urgent need.

No Premier League side under-performed their expected goals (xG) number more from the moment Tuchel took over in January, and a borderline impenetrable defence was the foundation of their Champions League triumph.

Lukaku has offered a steady stream of goals from the moment he arrived in England a decade ago; he already ranks 20th in the all-time list of Premier League scorers, and is well placed to force his way into the top 10 over the course of his five-year contract back at Stamford Bridge.

If he assumes penalty duties there may be some cannibalisation of Jorginho’s goal return, but on the whole, there is every reason to think that Lukaku will make Chelsea a significantly better attacking team.

That might not be essential to win the Champions League or a domestic cup competition, but history tells us that Premier League title winners can generally lean on an elite primary scorer.

That is the conversation Tuchel and Chelsea want to be in this season.

Lukaku is good enough to ensure they will be.

[milka 3,393]

at the pace we are working, I expect Lukaku to be Chelsea player it in early September and Kounde in late November

and we can leave them for January

Edited August 11, 2021 by milka

[Nero 1,874]

 

[Special Juan 28,141]

Flight Tracker please.

[BXL70 396]

2 hours ago, milka said:

at the pace we are working, I expect Lukaku to be Chelsea player it in early September and Kounde in late November

and we can leave them for January

No worries. He was in Monaco today to sign contract extension with his agent while Chelsea was finalizing paperworks together with Inter. Tomorrow he will be in London to sign his contract and official announcement will be made on Thursday or Friday this week.

[Special Juan 28,141]

2 minutes ago, BXL70 said:

No worries. He was in Monaco today to sign contract extension with his agent while Chelsea was finalizing paperworks together with Inter. Tomorrow he will be in London to sign his contract and official announcement will be made on Thursday or Friday this week.

He's in London within the hour. All sealed tonight.

[Special Juan 28,141]

Confirmed by Romano he has just landed at Biggin Hill Airport, confirmed via video.

He's on his way to SB

[Marvin123 534]

https://twitter.com/FabrizioRomano/status/1425502146007642113?s=19

[DDA 9,941]

The return of Romelu.

The young Prince soon to become King 🤴 

[Milan 17,958]

Now after the Supercup victory, can those who actually watched Lukaku see the difference/positive side he is going to bring to the team? Will he help us when we are dominating possession and the opposition are digging deep? Will he help us in the moments we suffered against Villareal? I did not watch him in the last couple of years so this is a genuine question.

[Magic Lamps 11,692]

4 minutes ago, Milan said:

Now after the Supercup victory, can those who actually watched Lukaku see the difference/positive side he is going to bring to the team? Will he help us when we are dominating possession and the opposition are digging deep? Will he help us in the moments we suffered against Villareal? I did not watch him in the last couple of years so this is a genuine question.

Honestly, if he had arrived on his inter form he would have had a field day today, Villareal had moments when they were super open but Timo just got bullied off the ball. that will not happen with Lukaku. But there will be plenty of moments were Lukaku will be just as frustrating as Tammy or Timo.

2 things i think he will help us with is a) be more clinical on the counter. He can run with the ball at pace and go past defenders without being shoved off it. This will enable us to play out counter attacks way more direclty

b) fix long balls in attack. we lose a lot of rebounds and 2nd balls. lukaku is good with his back to the defender and this will open space for our players to latch onto the rebounds.

I dont think he is worth what we paid for him but in games such as today, he might be clutch. That is provided the pressure is not too much for him and he does not completely shit it like our last 2 big money strikers.

[Special Juan 28,141]

What a few hours, tonight Super Cup win and tomorrow Rom is home.

Embrace it people.

[LAM09 7,056]

Probably wake up to his announcement in the morning. Fun few days before the league season starts.

Edited August 12, 2021 by LAM09

[DH1988 1,348]

30 minutes against Palace, then?