The signing of Romelu Lukaku last summer was a shock to some Chelsea fans like myself. Whilst it was clear that the Blues would not be able to secure Erling Haaland at a near decent price, the next best player on the market was the Belgian forward. Despite his stellar goal scoring record at Inter Milan, there were still question marks as to whether Thomas Tuchel's style of football would be complimentary with Lukaku's. In the end, those questions were answered by the man himself.
Lukaku spoke with Sky Italia complaining about the system not favouring him. The fact that he was signed knowing the kind of possession-based football that Tuchel employs, it's a mystery as to why the manager wanted him in the first place.
Chelsea have made a number of mistakes in recent transfer windows that they are still paying for. Antonio Conte's 2017/18 window has to be the worst of them all, with Timoue Bakayoko and Danny Drinkwater still under Chelsea's payroll this year. There were also a number of mistakes reportedly sanctioned by Roman Abramovich that didn't go down too well, such as Andriy Shevchenko and Fernando Torres. With Dean Jones stating that Romelu Lukaku was also a Roman Abramovich signing, it's time to action a plan to move on.
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Speaking to Give Me Sport, journalist and transfer specialist Dean Jones touched on Romelu Lukaku's current situation at Chelsea. He said: "You go back and look at the [Romelu] Lukaku situation last summer, there were definitely some people around Chelsea that didn’t think that was a good idea, but Abramovich did and Granovskaia did and it hasn’t worked out.”
As much as Chelsea fans liked to put their trust in Roman Abramovich in the past, mistakes like this just cannot happen again. The Blues were eager for a striker as it seemed to be the only missing piece to the puzzle at the time. If Lukaku was able to replicate his goalscoring form from his two seasons at Italy, then I'd probably be sat here praising Abramovich for getting it right. But this is not the case.
The sanctions imposed on the Russian billionaire prevented him from righting his wrongs in this summers transfer window. There's no doubt that he would have thrown the kitchen sink in the transfer window budget for Thomas Tuchel to get a new striker.
The message here is that the Blues can no longer afford to make these kind of mistakes when profiling players. On paper Lukaku was the correct signing but in reality he has a completely different playing style to that which Tuchel demands. Gone are the days where managers would have to make it work with a marquee signing under Roman Abramovich. The Todd Boehly era comes with new, unfamiliar factors but importantly, it comes with structure.
In future transfer windows, Todd Boehly's approach will be data driven, focusing heavily on numbers. The right player will be a Chelsea player if the data proves that there's a fit. it may not sound as attractive as getting a new shiny toy that everybody in Europe wants, but it's a model that has worked for Liverpool. As quoted by Bloomberg, Todd Boehly praises the Liverpool model and the way they handle their business.
"If you look at the models that are very successful, Liverpool is a great model. Liverpool generates a couple of hundred million more revenue than Chelsea and they generate earnings, so I think there is an opportunity to compete," he told the SuperReturn International conference in Berlin. Boehly also went on to advocate for change in the football business and wants to incorporate an "American mentality".
There's going to be a change in the way Chelsea move in the transfer window and with their business across the board. We may lose a few familiar faces along the way but it's out with the old and in with the new for the Todd Boehly era.
