Chelsea FC Transfer Rumours: Romelu Lukaku Talks Loan
by Graham MacAree on Jan 16, 2012 10:56 PM GMT
in Chelsea FC: Transfer Rumours & News
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Romelu Lukaku's a bit of an enigma. Chelsea spent a lot of money taking the Belgian off Anderlecht's hands over the summer - £18M, to be precise - and since he's barely featured for the first team. Granted, it's difficult to get a spell with Chelsea when the Blues are already rotating two of the best-paid strikers in the world through the centre forward spot, but Lukaku's lack of playing time considering the investment is alarming.
For his part, Lukaku's looking for more playing time in the first team, and if he doesn't get it he'd like to go on loan:
If my situation at Chelsea does not evolve between now and the end of the season, it may be better to be loaned out for a season.
A loan this season is not possible, as I have already played for two different clubs (but) if this situation endures, it might be better to play for another club for a year and then come back.
But let's see what happens in the next six months. Many things could still change.
-Source: Belga via ESPN Soccernet.
(not to the media: Pay attention to the bolded bit)
Lukaku's a fascinating, if flawed player, and while I'm confident that he'll end up a star for Chelsea it's a real shame he's being wasted right now. If we could send him on loan like Josh McEachran, I'm positive that we'd do so, but that rule he mentions precludes the teenager from going anywhere until next season. It's doing him not much good at all sitting on the bench or playing for the reserves.
While a loan would probably be a idea right now, that doesn't mean that it would still be so clever next season. There's some time for Lukaku to impress with Didier Drogba and Salomon Kalou out, and hopefully Andre Villas-Boas will take the opportunity to hand him a start right now. It'd be really nice to see the Blues stroll to a blowout win just to let some of the younger players get some time on the pitch, because it's frustrating all of them right now.
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I wonder if he is partly to blame for his current situation
He made it clear when we signed him that he would not accept a loan deal and that he wanted to stay with the squad.
by el chelsea fuerte on Jan 16, 2012 11:11 PM GMT reply actions
Chelsea's Fault & not Lukaku's
The blame is 95% with Chelsea and 5% with Lukaku. Maybe Lukaku should have stayed in Belgium on a sign and loan deal but it’s not his fault he’s got virtually zero playing time in Chelsea.
1) Torres and Drogba continuing a post-World Cup funk has killed all late substitution minutes Luakaku could have gotten. Who expected both Torres and Drogba to stay cold and who thought we’d need to bring on these two superstars for the final 20-30 minutes of a match in hopes that they’d score a much needed goal. Superstars shouldn’t need a late game gimme goal to get hot but Torres and Drogba both need it and have sucked up 100% of the striker minutes.
2) Who expected Chelsea to be competing for 4th and not a title? I thought we’d finish similar to last year not really good enough to win the EPL but good enough to be close. Instead we’re 6 points behind Tottenham (still hard to believe), 4 ahead of 6th place, and 5 ahead of 7th! Say it was more similar to the year most of us expected where Chelsea were safe in UEFA champions league and not in the EPL race, Lukaku would get the occasional EPL start because losing points wouldn’t be so costly. Today, we can’t afford to drop points due to Lukaku so he doesn’t get to start once every two months like some of us expected.
3) Who expected the Carling Cup to be so awful for our youth? Not only did we exit a round earlier than we should have but we seemingly spent every 2nd half down a man. Lukaku and McEachran saw far fewer minutes than they should have. Ideally, AVB would have said fuck it and let them play despite being down a man but with the expectation to win something, even if it’s just the Carling Cup, AVB was forced/pressured into playing veterans way earlier than expected.
4) If we had a more normal Carling Cup and League season we wouldn’t NEED to win the FA Cup (or do well). But unless we play Dagenham & Redbridge or another League Two team I don’t think we’ll see Lukaku much unless we blow out the opponent.
Everything has gone as bad as possible this year and that’s hurt Lukaku. However, he is still just 18 and plenty young. Next year a year long loan to Wigan (if we keep Drogba and/or buy a new stirker) would make sense no matter what. He’s not Chelsea ready but physically he’s EPL ready. Now with Drogba gone to Africa hopefully Torres calms downs, catches fire and Lukaku sees enough time this fall for a team to jump all over loaning him next year.
We shouldn't be competing for 4th
3rd place must be the minimum requirement. 4th place would affect us negatively next summer. Which is why we maybe should be looking to spend big on a decent forward this month. We need to make up the points and overtake Tottenham/United.
Agree
because it’s a bit early to already fall back for 4th position. If it were nearly end of the season with a few games to go – fine – but not now. If you only aim for 4th position (Pool 2010 anyone?) you’re likely to fall out
Tor ilisar'thera'nal!
I'm not sure what difference you think 4th vs. 3rd would make "next summer"
Outside of an extra pair of matches vs. a beatable team.
Transfer market?
There’d still be the chance that we don’t qualify for the CL so it might be more difficult to get players?
If we can't overtake Spurs by the end of the season
I’d see us as a very beatable team as well. I think we’re good enough to get third and like Maiev said it’s far too early to settle for fourth. We need to look to move up the table. And deg0ey is right. Would you rather go to City, United, Chelsea or Spurs if Chelsea haven’t already guaranteed a spot in the group stage of the CL?
If it’s half way through the season and you aren’t in 1st place you should be looking to move up the table.
Never said we shouldn't be looking to move "up" the table
I was just questioning the magnitude placed on the difference between 3rd and 4th. And given a choice of the Top 4 teams, a player will still most likely just choose the one offering the most money, rather than worry about some random qualifying round.
Our problem is, there are no true "easy" games ahead.
Norwich and Swansea, while they should lose to us, aren’t exactly push-overs. By the way, we’ll have put a clause in the loan deal for Josh which prevents him from playing us, right?
Author and Official Fernando Torres Apologist for We Ain't Got No History!
It's not something we have to do
There’s actually a FA rule preventing him from playing his parent club while on loan.
by Stephen Schmidt on Jan 17, 2012 1:16 AM GMT up reply actions
I suppose it doesn't really matter.
I doubt any team would really let their player play against them anyway.
Author and Official Fernando Torres Apologist for We Ain't Got No History!
by Kevin Kostka on Jan 17, 2012 2:03 AM GMT up reply actions
We have an FA Cup match in there somewhere
Lukaku is almost guaranteed to start there, assuming Torres starts all the league matches.
His reaction is interesting
as it certainly suggests he expected more first team action, despite his comments when he had first signed. I don’t blame him, but using words like “endures” makes it sound like prison. It’s only the basket! I am sure we’d have loaned him this period if we could, but that said, I agree that if we could get 3 up without about 20mins to spare, it would be great. We could put some youngsters on and get them some time, hopefully continuing to do well enough in other matches that we can put them on sooner (or they may impress enough to earn the starting spot).
Be wary about reading too much into translated words :)
I don’t think the original was in english
by Graham MacAree on Jan 17, 2012 3:07 AM GMT up reply actions
Good note
that would certainly make a difference.
If we could loan him out now
I wouldn’t. We’re low on strikers until Drogba comes back.
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