Chelsea this afternoon confirmed the exit of Romelu Lukaku, and as you’d expect after his acrimonious second spell at the club, there was not a huge amount of love in the announcement of the move.
“Romelu Lukaku has left Chelsea and completed a permanent move to Napoli for an undisclosed fee,” the statement on the club website reads.
The Belgium international, who joined Chelsea in the summer of 2021, has spent the previous two campaigns on loan in Serie A at Inter Milan and Roma.
Lukaku will now reunite with former Chelsea head coach Antonio Conte in Naples on a permanent basis.”
That’s all he got – and some would say that’s all he deserved.
A great diversion point
We think that would probably be harsh. That infamous interview at the end of 2021 was very ill advised, and showed a real lack of basic manners and common sense on his part, but it wasn’t as malicious as some would like you to think.
Anyway, after some very expensive and tedious years, the marriage is over for a second time, and both parties can breathe a huge sigh of relief about the whole thing.
It will always remain one of those great “sliding doors” moments in recent Chelsea history. If Lukaku had thought twice about that chat with Sky Italia, or even just phrased things a little more carefully, where would we be now? Would Thomas Tuchel still be here? Would we have the same ownership? Would we have more trophies? How many goals could the Belgian have scored?
It seems likely his love of Inter Milan and his love of the cameras would have got him in hot water eventually, but it’s also easy to imagine him being a regular scorer for a really efficient Tuchel team, and the fans are pretty happy to forgive anything when you’re scoring for them…