Chelsea striker Romelu Lukaku returned to the starting line-up for the first leg of their League Cup semi-final at home to Tottenham Hotspur on Wednesday, a day after apologizing for saying he would not was unhappy with his role at Stamford Bridge.
Lukaku was left out of the squad for the 2-2 Premier League draw with Liverpool at the weekend after telling https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-soccer-england-che-lukaku- idUKKBN2J91CE Sky Italy that he was unhappy with the “situation” at Chelsea and would like to return to Italy sometime in the future. In a video posted on the Chelsea website on Tuesday, Lukaku said he was sorry for the inconvenience he caused.
“I’m happy he’s on the pitch today,” coach Thomas Tuchel told the club’s website https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/2022/01/05/tuchel -team-news-pre-tottenham ahead of Wednesday’s Game. “We can listen to this interview 100 times and it won’t get better, but we can change direction. We accept that it happened, he accepted that it happened and we have enough reason to move on.
“Now we have to protect him and push him because he’s our player and we want him, and he wants to be, a key player.” The 28-year-old Belgium international signed for Chelsea from Inter Milan at the end of the season for a record fee of 97.5 million pounds ($132.5 million). He has scored seven times in 18 games in all competitions this season.
Tuchel also said defender Thiago Silva and midfielder N’Golo Kante were absent from Wednesday’s squad after testing positive for COVID-19. “It’s huge for us because they are two huge players. We had the latest information today in the morning, so it’s quite difficult, but we will push. The guys who are here have our confidence and belief “, added Tuchel. ($1 = 0.7357 pounds)
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