ROMELU LUKAKU faces a month out – dealing Chelsea a serious blow in the title race.
The club’s record £97.5million signing twisted his ankle during Wednesday’s 4-0 Champions League win over Malmo.
And he now faces three to four weeks on the sidelines during a key part of the season.
After a tough run of fixtures, the Premier League leaders have a favourable spell with games again Norwich, Newcastle, Burnley and Leicester.
All would be viewed as winnable games where Chelsea would expect to rack up precious points to hold off main rivals Liverpool and Manchester City.
But Lukaku will now have to sit it out and it means ambitious Chelsea will be robbed of their ‘reference point’ up front as he is known by boss Thomas Tuchel.
Lukaku has been on a barren run with no goals in seven games for his club.
But with him sidelined and injury to fellow forward Timo Werner, it makes life difficult for Tuchel over the next few weeks.
The brilliant Belgian has been overdue a rest and will get an enforced one now.
Tuchel said: “It was necessary that Romelu was on the pitch, he started very strong.
“I spoke with him about the situation, that I think he carries a bit of a mental fatigue around with him, and that I think it’s also normal, but he’s our number nine, he’s our reference up front and the best thing against mental fatigue is a goal and we knew that we could be the dominant team.
“We knew today we built a fast attack with Mason and Timo around him, and him as the reference point up front in the middle, and I had a strong belief that he could in a Champions League match turn things around in terms of scoring and being decisive, which he actually did because he was super strong in our start and he took the foul, so maybe without him it’s not 2-0.
“I don’t regret it because it’s not a muscle injury and not from physical fatigue, he is more a little bit overplayed.
“That is just my opinion, maybe I’m not even right, and it was the moment to give him confidence and let him play.
“I don’t regret it because he was decisive and things like this can happen, it’s just bad luck.”
Chelsea’s next big game is their home Champions League game with Juventus on November 23.
That is followed five days later by a home Premier League clash against Manchester United.
Lukaku is expected to be fit by then.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
