Chelsea have reason to feel blue over Romelu Lukaku return

Romelu Lukaku’s anonymous performance against Crystal Palace continued a difficult first season back at Chelsea following his club-record summer move.

The Belgium striker had just seven touches of the ball, a record low for a 90-minute Premier League appearance since Opta began collecting such data in 2003.

Having joined from Inter Milan, Lukaku’s impact has not been what Chelsea would have wished – here, the PA news agency analyses his season to date.

Lukaku has scored only five league goals and 10 in all competitions, two of those coming at the recent Club World Cup.

A game and a half against Aston Villa account for three of his five in the league, while he also scored in wins over Arsenal and Brighton. He scored in both Champions League fixtures against Zenit St Petersburg and against Chesterfield in the FA Cup before netting against Al Hilal and Palmeiras in the intercontinental competition.

He has just one goal in 548 minutes against Chelsea’s fellow ‘big six’ Premier League clubs, that coming against the Gunners in his first appearance of the season.

While there is around a third of the season to go, with the Blues still active in four competitions including in Sunday’s Carabao Cup final, that contrasts markedly with Lukaku’s form in recent years.

Only in his disappointing final season at Manchester United, when he started in only 22 of his 32 Premier League appearances and scored 12 league goals and 15 in all, has his output dipped to a similar level.

Prior to that he scored 25, 26 and 27 goals in successive seasons for Everton and United, including a career-best 25 league goals for the Toffees in 2016-17, while his two years at Inter brought him 23 and 24 in Series A and his only 30-goal campaigns in all