Belgium manager Roberto Martinez has hinted that Romelu Lukaku might be on the move in the summer window amidst his struggles at Chelsea.
As quoted by The Sun, Belgium national team manager Roberto Martinez has indirectly dropped a hint that Romelu Lukaku could leave Chelsea in the next few months by saying that the summer window could be a ‘big moment’ in the striker’s career.
Romelu Lukaku returned to Chelsea last summer from Inter Milan, signing in a club-record deal worth £97 million. The Belgian international began his second coming at Stamford Bridge on a positive note. But soon, his early-season form dissipated while an interview with an Italian network stirred up a lot of controversies.
Following that, Lukaku was briefly axed from the starting XI while he also encountered injury problems along the way, which meant that he has managed to score just five times in 20 Premier League matches so far this season. His poor form has given way to Kai Havertz becoming the first-choice striker at Stamford Bridge, affecting the 28-year-old’s game-time.
This has cast doubt on his future at Chelsea beyond the ongoing campaign, especially with 2022 being a World Cup year. Now, Belgium head coach Roberto Martinez has provided his take on the situation of the Blues’ hitman, insisting that there could be a chance that Lukaku could move on for the better of his career.
“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. 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 in a different way 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 said.
Recent reports have claimed that Tuchel is looking to offload Lukaku in the summer window, along with fellow striker Timo Werner. So, it will certainly be interesting to see if Chelsea decide to move on from their record signing just a year after bringing the Belgian back into the fold.
