Romelu Lukaku: A Chelsea tragedy in seven touches

There was no arguing with Romelu Lukaku’s first involvement at Selhurst Park. In fact he was on the ball before anyone else on the pitch. Little did he know as he passed the ball smoothly backwards to N’Golo Kante from the kick-off, however, that he would touch the ball only another six times.

Footballers like to set records, but the one Chelsea’s No 9 achieved on Saturday is not one he will be keen to boast about. Seven touches is the least registered by any player across 90 minutes since Opta started compiling such statistics back in 2003. Kasper Schmeichel, the previous record holder with eight, will have allowed himself a sigh of relief at that news, but at least he is a goalkeeper.

Strikers do not require a huge number of touches in a match to make an impact. Harry Kane’s heat map was hardly ablaze at the Etihad on Saturday. But what he did was make his touches count. That is how strikers are defined. 

To be fair, for a moment it seemed Lukaku might have done just that with two of his. Well into the second half, he finally managed to turn the Crystal Palace defence with one deft touch then take a shot with a second. It was a good one too, sharp and accurate, obliging the Palace substitute goalkeeper Jack Butland to make a full length diving save. The ball rebounded to Hakim Ziyech who slammed it home. Nobody was counting Lukaku’s touches as the Chelsea players celebrated in front of their fans. Unfortunately, the Video Assistant Referee had noticed what the assistant referee has not: Lukaku had been offside when he received the ball at the start of the move. The goal was ruled out. These were not touches that counted, after all.

Of his other four moments on the ball there is nothing to report. None were cunning