The shocking stat which highlights Lukaku's dismal form for Chelsea
Martin Macdonald
- Updated: 19 Feb 2022 11:26 CST
- 4 min read
Chelsea secured a 1-0 away victory against Crystal Palace in the Premier League on Saturday, but certainly made hard work of the win on the day.
In the end, Hakim Ziyech recovered from a penalty miss to score the only goal of the game in the 89th minute.
The overall performance will be a concern for Thomas Tuchel, but one individual performance, again, will be hugely worrying for the German boss.
Romelu Lukaku has come under major criticism for his performances since the turn in the year, and pretty much in general since he completed his sensational return to Chelsea in the summer.
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Though he started brightly, Lukaku's season has tailed off due to form and injury issues, while he risked the wrath of the Chelsea fans by expressing regret at leaving Inter in an interview with Sky Sports.
He apologised afterwards and has apparently made up with Tuchel and his team-mates, but that hasn't translated into better performances.
And, his outing against Palace was one of his worst of the entire season.
Rather shockingly, Lukaku touched the ball just twice in the first half at Selhurst Park - and one of those came from the opening kick off.
The Belgian touched the ball only twice in the opening 48 minutes, and the second wasn't exactly in a dangerous position in the middle of the pitch.
In total, Lukaku has 10 goals in 27 appearances this season, some way off the outlay that was expected of a £97.5m player.
He scored two goals in the Club World Cup last week, but those strikes will do little to earn him a complete reprieve.
Social media reacts to Lukaku performance
Lukaku was criticised for his performance on social media after the match.
Here are some of the reactions.
2 - Romelu Lukaku had just two touches of the ball in the first half against Crystal Palace, with one of those being the first pass of the game from kick-off. Ghosted. pic.twitter.com/lS4zCe3FQp
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) February 19, 2022
"7 - Romelu Lukaku had just seven touches against Crystal Palace, the fewest in a single Premier League game for a player with 90+ minutes played since this data is available in full for the competition (2003-04). One of those touches was from kick-off in the first half. Quiet." - @OptaJoe
"Lukaku hasn’t registered a heat map on SofaScore yet." - @CFCDaily
"Half done. 48 mins played. Lukaku had two f**king touches. That’s on EVERYONE. He was £100m and this is what we’ve figured out? We literally have three players besides him, in the XI today, who we spent £50m+ on.
"This attack is inexcusable." - @AlexGoldberg_
"I know Lukaku is villain #1 on twitter and hating on him gets easy numbers but it's not all his fault.
"He was one of the most ball-dominant attackers last season and Tuchel has a history of limiting the touches of his pure strikers (like Aubameyang). This is a systemic issue. - @ExpectedChelsea
"Lukaku’s shirt number is higher than the number of touches he had today" - @CFCDubois
