“We have to treat him that way” – as Ziyech reveals how Chelsea players reacted to Lukaku’s comments on Chelsea
Lukaku’s teammate Hakim Ziyech has opened up about the whole fiasco and revealed how the whole squad supported the player and let him know that he is an important player for the Blues.
Chelsea have spent a fortune on the Belgian international as Tuchel was convinced that Lukaku could be the difference maker for the Blues during the 2021-22 season. However, the 28 year old ended up suffering an injury and was also affected by COVID which sidelined him for nine games in total. Even in all the matches that he did play, Romelu Lukaku lacked consistency and looked isolated upfront on the pitch.
One of the main reasons for his lack of form was due to his inability to adapt to a new system. Tuchel decided to tweak his tactical setup to suit the players that he had during the last few months as many of his first choice players were injured during the last few months. This was something that made the Belgian unhappy and he ended up doing a controversial interview where he publicly admitted that he was unhappy with his current status at Chelsea.
Throughout the interview, Lukaku was reminishing his time at Inter Milan which created huge doubt as to whether or not the 28 year old was forcing a move out of the club to rejoin Inter. After the interview was posted, Tuchel was disappointed with the whole fiasco and even dropped Lukaku from the squad that faced Liverpool.
However, the club and Tuchel put in a solid effort to hear the concerns of Romelu Lukaku in a recent private meeting which went well.
The Belgian is back with the squad and was happily training during a training session with his teammates. Chelsea star Hakim Ziyech recently opened up about the whole incident during a post-match interview and added that the whole team supported Lukaku to make him focus about the game.
Ziyech then stated that teammates are supposed to support each other whenever one of them feels low or disconnected from the rest.
Hakim Ziyech said: “The only thing we can do is support him and make him not think about other things, just about the game – and I think that’s what we did the last couple of days. Like I said, that’s why we’re teammates, to support each other, and that’s what we did.”