Primary Position – Centre Forward

Other position(s)– None

Last season’s form – Games 36 / 24 goals 10 assists

Born in Antwerp, Belgium in 1993, Lukaku began his club career playing for Anderlecht where he finished as the Belgian League’s top scorer in 2010/11. He then moved to Chelsea for a fee of £10 million but made only eight appearances in his debut season. He was then loaned out to West Brom in 2012/13 where he scored 17 goals in 35 appearances and then to Everton in 2013/14 where he notched 15 in 31. The Toffees then signed him the following season for a club record fee of £28 million and he went on to score 53 goals over the next three campaigns. Man. Utd signed the Belgian in the 2017/18 Summer transfer window for a fee of £75 million but his two years at the Red Devils were largely unsuccessful with just 28 goals in 66 appearances. Italian side Inter Milan came calling in 2019/20 and signed Lukaku for a club record fee of €80 million. Under Conte’s tutelage, he scored 47 goals in 72 appearances, leading the team to the Serie A title in 2020/21.

Chelsea were ranked third for Expected Goals (33.11) in 2020/21, just behind Liverpool (33.85) and Man. City (37.31). Creating chances was not a problem for the London side but they lacked a clinical finisher who put those opportunities away and Lukaku’s conversion rate of 25% from last season would indicate Chelsea have found the missing piece of the puzzle.  The Belgian should need no time readjusting to the Premier League after his earlier exploits and Tuchel has spoken about how the team might play different systems to get the best out of Lukaku. He also indicated that he would be picking one of Werner and Havertz to partner Lukaku so the Belgian’s spot in the team sounds almost certain. A price of 11.5 in Fantasy Premier League (FPL) makes Lukaku difficult to accommodate in most squads without parting with B. Fernandes or Salah who have both started the season well. Chelsea have a difficult run of fixtures upto gameweek six but have a great schedule after so perhaps managers can take their time and monitor how the Belgian gets on in his first few matches. 

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