April 03, (THEWILL) – With the World Cup in Qatar approaching, Belgium manager Roberto Martinez has stated that out-of-favour striker Romelu Lukaku may have to leave Chelsea.
THEWILL recalls that Chelsea paid a club-record sum of £97.5 million (€115 million) to bring Lukaku back to Stamford Bridge from Inter in August at the express desire of club owner Roman Abramovich.
Lukaku’s second tenure at Chelsea has not gone as planned, and the 28-year-old did himself no favours when he told Sky Sport Italia, in a clip that went viral, that he was dissatisfied with his situation with the European champions after losing his starting spot.
The former Everton and Manchester United striker has struggled this season, scoring only 12 goals in 35 appearances under Thomas Tuchel.
Martinez intimated that if he can not push his way back into the Blues’ lineup, the Red Devils’ all-time greatest scorer could have to look for new pastures, so he will be firing on all cylinders in Qatar later this year.
“We are talking about players, like Romelu, who have got over 100 caps and are part of this group of players who know the national team inside out,” the Spaniard said.
“I’m not going to judge or assess the condition of any player until after the summer because it is not a normal situation. It is still seven months to the World Cup and probably you will go into the details of how a player feels when it gets closer to it than now.
“But there will be a lot of players who change clubs or are going to feel differently in the summer. Romelu needs to be assessed on how he feels in September, the same way Eden Hazard does and some others.
“But he is one of the players for whom the summer could be a big moment for their careers.”
Martinez was quick to claim that Lukaku was ready to compete for a spot in Tuchel’s squad.
He continued: “We always speak. I have a very close relationship with all my players. I would never tell a player what to do but we always share thoughts.
“At the moment Romelu is in a good place. He is so committed. He was delighted to win the Club World Cup and the next step is to finish the season strong with Chelsea and make sure he can feel very important.”
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
