Romelu Lukaku: Clip of all seven touches Chelsea striker had v Palace emerges

Chelsea’s £97.5m frontman Romelu Lukaku caused quite the stir at the end of last year when he admitted that he wasn’t enjoying the tactics adopted by Blues boss Thomas Tuchel and was missing life at former club Inter Milan.

Well, for all that he contributed to Chelsea’s 1-0 victory at Crystal Palace on Saturday, the 28-year-old might as well have been back at the San Siro.

Lukaku played the full 90 minutes of the trip to Selhurst Park, but to say he had a quiet afternoon would be the understatement of the year.

So anonymous was the Belgian striker in south London that he actually set a record with his lack of activity.

Opta, the Premier League’s official data collection company, began collating statistics for the English top-flight in 2003/04 and in the 18 seasons since have never recorded a player having fewer touches over a full 90 minutes than the seven Lukaku managed against the Eagles.

To provide fans with a visual representation of just how sparingly Lukaku was involved against Palace, Sky Sports have put together a compilation of all seven of his touches.

There’s being on the fringes of a game – and then there’s this.

Just 15 seconds into the package and we’re done with Lukaku’s work for the first period. He’s touched the ball on just two occasions. One of those, for the record, was when he kicked the game off.

“Lukaku with barely a kick in the first-half. He’ll hope that changes,” says the commentator as the players leave the field for the interval.

It did, but not by much! Lukaku played a couple of quick layoffs for teammates at the start of the second half and later flicked the ball on from a Malang Sarr throw (although he was penalised for a foul in doing so).

That was all from Lukaku until the 75th minute