Honestly felt devastated upon seeing Lukaku's loan to Everton for this season confirmed on WAGNH (despite my best efforts to avoid all deadline day news for the last hour before it shut). So many things wrong with this transfer that annoys me to no end as a Chelsea fan:
- First of all, Mourinho came out at the start of summer and said categorically that Lukaku was in his plans for this season. This statement is now shown to be a complete lie which definitely doesn't endear me to his second coming in the slightest. What other 'promises' will possibly be broken during his tenure?
- Lukaku managed to bag 17 goals for West Brom last season (more than both our strikers combined managed for us). This shows he is already a goalscorer - what it doesn't show is whether he will fit into our system. This is what this season should have been about. Another loan to a premier league club will provide nothing to his development (maybe he'll score 25 goals but doesn't prove anything more to us)
- We are placing a ridiculous amount of faith in Eto'o, as if for some reason he struggles or gets a long term injury, we're left with the same exact options as we had last season which as we'll all remember was more than just a little bit lacklustre
- For all those saying this loan will be good as it'll allow him to come back into the fold as our main striker next season when Eto'o and possibly Ba leave - does this not put even more pressure on the Lukaku? He'll have to come back into a side he has no idea how to play with and somehow lead the line for them. This season could have been a chance to slowly ease him into the side and get him to acclimatise to the way we play
- Finally - do we ever give youth a chance!?! It seems as if unless a player comes in for more than £20million they're deemed surplus requirements in lieu of experienced and more expensive acquisitions (Willian, Torres to name a couple)
I came into this season full of hope after a solid preseason and a decent bit of transfer dealings but the last two weeks have been more than a bit disappointing. Things at Chelsea have invariably not changed leading me to believe we're almost certainly not going to have the fairytale change in direction we were all hoping for when Mourinho signed.