Poor record from Lukaku
At the limit – there are the “blues“Certainly not at the moment, even if they are in the League Cup with a particularly good defensive performance against Tottenham Hotspur have reached the final. In the game ahead, however, a lot of things are going quite unevenly, and that also has to do with the strange posse around Romelu Lukaku.
The Belgian, who was signed by Inter Milan for 115 million euros after the triumph in the premier class, should actually be the last missing piece of the puzzle in order to play a dominant role in Europe in the long term. But Lukaku never got into the right rhythm, after 21 league games he has only eight starting eleven appearances and five goals this season and one assist on his account, which is a measly five by his standards.
Joking with the fans
Around the turn of the year, Lukaku then gave “Sky Italy” a memorable interview that brought him a fine of around 500,000 euros at Chelsea and huge trouble with the fans and Tuchel. During the conversation, the attacker explained his dissatisfaction with his role in the “blues‘ and said he would like to ‘return to Inter Milan in the near future’.
Chelsea then let Lukaku dance to the report, and Tuchel threw him against him at 2-2 Liverpool FC from the squad. The Belgian had to publicly apologize to everyone involved, whereupon Tuchel, the fans at the, pardoned him Stamford Bridge but have not done so yet.
Werner doesn’t meet anymore
The problem: In terms of sport, the “Blues” depend on a fit and committed Lukaku. Because apart from Mason Mount (seven goals this season), the rest of the offensive department is weak: Christian Pulisic has three goals, Kai Havertz has two, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Hakim Ziyech and Timo Werner have only scored one goal each.
Before the season, many experts had predicted difficult times for Man City with the blow in the neck of the final bankruptcy, and the transfer dreams about Harry Kane and Cristiano Ronaldo burst. But Guardiola continued as usual, even without a supposed top clipper in attack like Lukaku. At City, the burden of scoring goals is distributed more or less evenly across a large number of pairs of shoulders: Bernardo Silva, Raheem Sterling have scored seven times each, Riyad Mahrez six times, Kevin De Bruyne and Phil Foden five times each and Ilkay Gündogan four times.
Eleven wins in a row
In the past two months in particular, City has played the competition to the ground, taking the confidence from eleven wins in a row into the top game. Tuchel doesn’t find a really good explanation for the different developments since the beginning of December: “Maybe it’s bad luck, maybe they’re doing better or whatever, but they have fewer injuries to key players.”
Some saw this statement as an excuse, but the news on the eve of the game went quite well with it: Defense ace Andreas Christensen, allegedly courted by FC Barcelona and also by Borussia Dortmund, will miss the duel with City because of a corona disease.
As of: 01/14/2022, 5:58 p.m