Romelu Lukaku has been given four days to convince Thomas Tuchel he deserves a recall for Sunday’s Carabao Cup Final.
Chelsea’s club-record £97.5million striker’s Wembley hopes are hanging in the balance after he was dropped for last night’s 2-0 Champions League win over Lille.
And Tuchel cast further doubt over his future, insisting the Belgium international has not met his demands of work-rate or intensity in recent weeks.
Lukaku managed just seven touches in Saturday’s 1-0 win against Crystal Palace and was promptly dropped last night. Tuchel claimed he was protecting his player, but made it clear the 28-year-old had come up short of late.
“It was not the moment after the [Palace] match where everybody was focused on the few touches that he had to put him right into the next fire,” said the Chelsea manager. “It was the moment to take a step back. That was the decision and that’s it.
“You can clearly see we have a strong win [tonight] and strong performance. It was a tough match and almost every question is about Romelu. The focus is huge.
“The focus today was on intensity and a high-speed game. It was about hard work against the ball, off the ball and to have intensive team work.
“Romelu struggled in the last few games a little bit to deliver that. That’s what I meant when I felt him a bit tired both mentally and physically. Since [last month’s] Liverpool game, he started every match and there were some extra times as well.
“It is like this. Today, we went for three other players with Kai (Havertz) in great shape, very confident and giving a lot of work rate in high-intensive metres for the team.
“We had a very aggressive high line on the pitch with Hakim (Ziyech) and Christian (Pulisic), the offensive three players together. The formation allowed us to have intensity and a high work rate consistently throughout the whole match.”
While Tuchel’s need to shield Lukaku was acknowledgement of his ongoing struggles since his move from Inter Milan last summer, most damning was his tactical reasoning for leaving him out.
Goals from Havertz and Pulisic put Chelsea on course for the quarter-finals — and such was the fluidity of their forward play that Lukaku faces a major fight to force his way back in to face Liverpool at Wembley on Sunday.
Tuchel said: “The decision doesn’t need to be made today, but can be in the next four days. He has every chance to play.
“There were nine other players who did not play. We should never forget we consider this sport a team sport and the 11 guys who play do everything to commit fully to what we plan and to commit fully to their team-mates, and those on the bench have to do the same and this is how it works. Especially at Chelsea and this is how we win matches.”
Tuchel praised Havertz’s performance at the point of Chelsea’s attack, saying: “Kai has been very strong for weeks now, really steps up. His effort is immense, the work-rate is immense, the areas of the pitch he covers for us is very, very good. He was decisive, created chances, was involved and was never shy of defending.”
Mateo Kovacic and Ziyech are both doubts for Sunday after limping off with second-half injuries.
Tuchel said: “I should have subbed Mateo at half-time, so could have had one more change. There are a lot of days to recover until Sunday. We don’t like to have that many injuries, and more impact from the bench on a tactical matter. I hope they will be ready.”
