Former Chelsea player Carlton Cole has called on the club to adapt to Romelu Lukaku’s strengths, rather than the other way around, with the Belgian enduring a tough time in his second spell at Stamford Bridge.
Lukaku, who rejoined Chelsea from Inter for a club record £97.5m over the summer, caused friction when he hit out at the club’s tactics. His words prompted clear-the-air talks with Thomas Tuchel which appeared to have done the trick.
But, since the turn of the year, Lukaku has failed to score in the Premier League, while often finding himself left out of Tuchel’s starting lineup, but Cole has urged Chelsea to make changes to get the best out of a player who scored 64 goals in just 95 matches in Italy.
“The situation is not down to Lukaku, it’s down to the scouting network, it’s not his fault,” Cole told Mirror Football at Masters Football and bookmakers.com ‘s ‘Evening With the Hammers’ event. “He’s never been a back to goal sort of guy, he’s always been on the shoulder.
“If you see all his goals last season, or most of them, it’s down the channels – that’s what he does. You can’t hate on him for that, that’s his strength and he plays to it. Defenders never like facing their own goal and he made them do that all the time. Chelsea need to change the tactics to suit him. If they play a deep line and counter attack then maybe that will suit him.
“We saw that against Aston Villa early on this season. He came on and he was just a beast of a forward, just unbelievable, and they were so scared of him. It’s not that he was holding the ball up and being a nuisance, it’s that he was on the run, starting from deep, they put him in with a through ball, Lukaku gets on the end of it, gets in the box and is a problem always for any defender.”
“Tammy Abraham, I’m so glad that he’s doing well,” Cole said. “He used his loans really well, went to Swansea and to Aston Villa and they really appreciated him there as well as a player.
“He’s a proper goalscorer, the only criticism I have of Tammy is he isn’t a hold up man – for his size he should be able to hold the ball in and I’ve told him this before. But because he makes up for it with goals, it gets overlooked.
“But in the Premier League you really need to hold the ball up and that’s where I think he falls short. In Serie A he can play on the shoulder, always facing forward. It’s the same with Lukaku, always facing forward, and those type of players score goals.
“It’s deceptive because they’re big frames, but they don’t actually play like me. I played back to goal, very comfortable back to goal, bring the ball in, lay it off and get in the box.
“It’s a dying skill, holding the ball up. Only Harry Kane and a few other players are good at it, Kevin Davies was the best at it. It’s a formula that works but it’s something dying.”
