Big Rom is back! Lukaku sends Boehly a message

Carlo Garganese

• Updated: 7 May 2022 17:24 BST
• 3 min read

Chelsea’s next owner Todd Boehly was in attendance on Saturday at Stamford Bridge for the Premier League match against Wolves.

Just hours after it was announced that the American had agreed a £4.25 million takeover of the club, Boehly was watching his team draw 2-2 with Wolves.

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Incredibly, the star of the show was a certain Romelu Lukaku.

The Belgian scored twice in three minutes at the start of the second half. First he won and then dispatched a penalty to put Chelsea ahead. And then he finished clinically to double the advantage from Christian Pulisic’s assist.

He was given a standing ovation when he was substituted off in the closing minutes, with Boehly keenly joining in.

If this was the first game Boehly had ever watched of Chelsea, he would be forgiven for assuming that Lukaku was Chelsea’s star man.

Of course, the 28-year-old has been anything but that this season following his disastrous €115 move from Inter last summer.

These goals on Saturday were Lukaku’s first Premier League strikes of 2022. He only had five all season prior to today.

It had seemed for months that Lukaku had thrown in the towel and given up on rescuing his Chelsea career.

On the pitch, Lukaku’s performances have been dismal and his body language has screamed of a player who would rather be anywhere but at Chelsea.

Thomas Tuchel has dropped him to the bench in recent months and it was looking increasingly likely that Chelsea would try to sell him or loan him out this summer.

Whether this return to form in front of Boehly’s watching eyes changes anything remains to be seen.

It could easily just be a brief flicker of the brilliant Lukaku we saw at Inter. Or could it be the spark to finally ignite his career in west London?

Next week’s FA Cup final against Liverpool will probably help answer that question. But at the beginning of a new era for Chelsea Football Club, it was their most derided player who wrote the first chapter.