Lukaku: Good Riddance or Bad Mistake?

Romelu Lukaku finally leaves Chelsea again, and this time it’s forever. The Belgian international has constantly been at it voicing his displeasure about being bellow in the ranks of Chelsea’s strike force options and not one of the formidable choices and this time it seems he has probably had enough after Chelsea signed Diego Costa, who would most definitely be the man to head the Chelsea attack next season.

In 2011 Chelsea signed the big Belgian forward who was at the time 18 years of age, he was signed for £17 million and was labeled “The next Drogba” by the media due to his size and strength but not only that, he had an impressive record in the Belgian league, winning their league trophy in 2010 with Anderlecht where he was the top scorer just being a teenager, therefore he potentially had the talent to become a dominant force like Drogba. Back then, there were a lot of people betting on him via Betting markets on Coral mobile to become the top scorer that season. It never happened.

But over the years, opinions have changed particularly among Chelsea fans and his move to Everton definitely sheds that name tag, because well, Drogba would not leave Chelsea for Everton. Lukaku managed to spend only one full season at Chelsea in his three year stint with the club, his first season, the young Belgian forward recorded 8 league appearances with the Blues without a goal in all competitions; he won the FA Cup in that year but missed out on the UEFA Champions League having been not registered.

Then he moved on loan to West Bromwich Albion the next season to join former Chelsea assistant manager and legend, Steve Clarke, where he had a stellar season. Scoring on his debut and going on to record 17 goals that season in the league, higher than any of our strikers. Shame really, I felt he should have stayed that season as Chelsea just had Fernando Torres upfront only and Daniel Sturridge who was eventually sold to Liverpool in January and Demba Ba was bought to boost our striking options upfront –well, we know how that turned out-.

Lukaku returned from his loan from West Brom and sought out first team football again but he reportedly requested to be loaned out again, after missing that penalty against Bayern Munich in the UEFA Super Cup. Lukaku returned to loan business as usual, scoring 15 league goals in 33 games, again, more than our strikers.

After 2 successful loan spells to other clubs in the same league, you would expect Chelsea to keep a player like that however that wasn’t the case. Chelsea have always been linked to the biggest strikers in Europe due to lacking a presence of one in the team, this season the club managed with the weary force of African legend and veteran, Samuel Eto’o, the now, abysmal, Fernando Torres and Senegal’s Demba Ba who hasn’t managed to replicate his Newcastle form in a Chelsea shirt and with all 3 spear heading the attack, one way or the other the end looked inevitable; no major trophy…or minor one.

Diego Costa’s buy is a huge boost for the club, but what happens if the striker has a blip in form sometime in the season or maybe, just maybe, suffers an injury? Do we rely on Drogba expecting him to produce when we know he is past the age or do we fall back to the inconsistent legs of Fernando Torres? This is honestly my concern. A lot of you might back up Lukaku’s sale as “good business” or some kind of “profit” but what happens when the all the chips are down?

Being a Chelsea fan I would hate to question Jose Mourinho ever, but the above is definitely a probability we should consider ourselves. In his recent presser, Jose has suggested Fernando would not be sold, but there goes the media again, linking us to a number of strikers after Lukaku’s sale, Edison Cavani in the front line of the rumours.

Jose says having three strikers is ‘the key’ to a season, but are these the right three strikers we want for our title winning season? I do strongly believe Lukaku would have provided adequate cover ahead of Torres and even Drogba, however the player wanted to leave and of recent it has become some sort of policy at Chelsea not to keep players against their will, case and point, Mata and Kevin DeBryune.

I really felt we should have just kept Romelu Lukaku a while longer, letting him whine all along, coming from the bench to prove himself and maybe he could have struck a memorable partnership with Costa like Drogba and Anelka after we finally realised they could play together, however what’s done is done.

We can only wish Lukaku all the best in a potentially bright future and hope to God he doesn’t become one of those strikers that pose a problem for us every time, like ex Everton’s Luis Saha.