Revealed: How Juve plan to stop Chelsea star Lukaku

Robin Bairner

• Updated: 29 Sept 2021 11:44 BST
• 3 min read

Romelu Lukaku has been in exceptional form since moving to Chelsea for Inter in the summer.

The Blues showed incredible faith in the Belgium striker by making him their most expensive player ever when he transferred from the Serie A champions for €115 million - just short of a Premier League record.

Lukaku has started life back at Chelsea by scoring four goals in six matches, playing a key role as Thomas Tuchel’s side has made a promising beginning to the season.

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This is a continuation of the brilliant form he showed at Inter last term, when he scored 30 goals in 44 games to fire the Nerazzurri to the Italian crown.

One man who appears to have cracked the code of how to stop the hitman, however, is Juventus defender Leonardo Bonucci. At club level, he shut out Lukaku on two occasions with Juve and then at Euro 2020 he did likewise as Italy stifled the frontman in open play as they eliminated Belgium.

Speaking to the Athletic, Bonucci revealed the secret to stopping such a multi-dimensional threat.

“Romelu Lukaku has proven himself to be a complete striker,” Bonucci said. “He can win games on his own. When you come up against him you have to be switched on for 100 minutes a game. Unfortunately for us defenders, we can’t disengage our brains even for 10 seconds because those 10 seconds might be lethal.

“You must never engage Lukaku in a physical battle or play touch-tight. Instead, be ready to drop off because when his team has the ball, he will try to run in behind.

“In the box, he’s great at playing man-to-man so you need to be on the front foot, try to read the game and play hard. If you let him take up a position and he gets ahead of you, you won’t be able to step out and anticipate what’s coming.”

Bonucci will face Lukaku again on Wednesday as Juventus host Chelsea in the Champions League.