Romelu Lukaku: Thomas Tuchel says ‘not time to laugh’ after Chelsea striker’s seven touches against Crystal Palace | Football News

February 21, 2022 admin

Thomas Tuchel says it is “not the time to laugh” about Romelu Lukaku after the Chelsea striker only managed seven touches against Crystal Palace.

Lukaku set a new Premier League record for the fewest touches from a player who’s played a full 90 minutes since statistics started being recorded by Opta in the 2003/04 season.

The Belgium international only managed seven touches in the 1-0 victory at Crystal Palace on Saturday – and one of those was from kick-off.

Asked how he can get Lukaku to touch the ball more often, Tuchel said: “What can I do? I don’t know. We have to deal with it.

“The data is out there and the data speaks a certain language. He was not involved in our game, it’s sometimes like this with strikers, if they struggle a bit with self-confidence, to find the space and to get involved against a good defensive side, it can be like this.

“It’s not what we want or Romelu wants but it’s also not the time to laugh about him and makes jokes about him. He’s in the spotlight but we will protect him.”

‘Chelsea have history of struggling strikers’

Lukaku has scored five goals in 17 Premier League appearances this season since his £97.5m move from Inter Milan last summer.

Tuchel, who is preparing Chelsea for Tuesday’s visit of Lille in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie, highlighted the 28-year-old is not the first striker to struggle at Stamford Bridge and suggested the reason for that could be the system he plays in.

“Maybe, maybe,” Tuchel said. “There is a history of strikers struggling a little bit at Chelsea so it may not be the easiest place in the world for strikers. I don’t know why it’s like this.

“In my opinion, Chelsea are a team considered a strong defensive team, a physical team, that has a certain attitude when in competitive football.

“We demand a lot of our strikers in terms of defending. We want to be physical, hard-working group that wants to play a physical game and as a skilful game. That maybe plays a part.

“We are on the subject and are well aware, but like always in football it’s not just one reason to sort a problem. It’s a complex sport and we will try to continue to play with faith, with a team effort.”

Can low-scoring Lille shock holders? Opta stats…

Chelsea are the first current champions of the UEFA Champions League to progress to the knockout stages not as group winners since Real Madrid in 2017-18, who did eventually go on to retain their title. The last current holders of the competition to be eliminated at the Last 16 stage were Liverpool in 2019-20 (v Atletico Madrid).
Lille (7) come into this round as the lowest scoring group winners since both Leicester City and Atletico Madrid in 2016-17 (also 7 each). Jonathan David has been responsible for three of those seven strikes, netting exactly once in his last three appearances in the UEFA Champions League; on the day of this game, David will be aged 22 years and 39 days, and should he score, Lionel Messi (21y 155d in November 2008) will be the only non-European player to score in four straight matches in the competition at a younger age than the Canadian.
Since his first campaign in the competition in 2017-18, Timo Werner (14) has scored more UEFA Champions League goals than any other German player, despite not appearing in the competition in 2018-19. However, 10 of his 14 goals have come in away matches (71.4%), with only Olivier Giroud (78% – 14/18) seeing a higher portion of his goals coming on the road in the competition’s history (min. 10 goals).
Including finals, Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel has progressed/won 73% UEFA Champions League knockout ties (8/11), with only three other managers boasting a higher such rate among those to have overseen at least 10 knockout ties within the competition – Vicente del Bosque (80% – 8/10), Josef Heynckes (86% – 12/14) and Zinedine Zidane (88% – 14/16).

Lille factfile

French champions Lille will head for west London hoping history does not repeat itself. The sides last met in the group stage of the competition during the 2019-20 campaign with the English club winning 2-1 home and away.

Jocelyn Gourvennec’s side – the former midfielder replaced title-winning boss Christophe Galtier last summer – have made it to the knockout stage for just the second time and the first since 2006-07, when they lost 2-0 on aggregate to Manchester United.

They currently lie in 11th place in Ligue 1, 23 points adrift of leaders Paris St Germain, but emerged from Group G as winners on the back of three successive victories having taken only two points from their first three fixtures.

They include former Southampton and West Ham defender Jose Fonte and the much-travelled Hatem Ben Arfa, who joined the club as a free agent in January, among their ranks.

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