Chelsea still believes in Lukaku

The Blues manager Thomas Tuchel said the club still believes in Romelu Lukaku despite the fact he didn’t start in their last two matches after the international break.

Lukaku has struggled for form since he returned to Chelsea last summer from Inter Milan, where he was exceptional.

His career at Stamford Bridge has been entirely different as he continues to lose game time by the day.

Tuchel, ahead of their match vs Southampton on Saturday has tipped Lukaku to improve.

‘We wanted Romelu and we bought him because we believed in him, and still do,’ Tuchel explained.

‘Has it worked out in a way everybody wanted so far? No, of course not. It is not on Romelu after two defeats, he didn’t even start these two last matches. We play the cup competitions until the end, we play [FA Cup] semi-final, we play the Carabao Cup final, and the Club World Cup final and we are in the race for top three in the hardest league. We have had one tough result against Real Madrid but we cannot put this on one player.

‘We are still working to make it better. We had a reason to spend this amount of money and he had reasons to come here and complete his Chelsea chapter. This is ongoing.