Romelu Lukaku: The Premier League players with fewer touches per 90 mins than Chelsea star

Romelu Lukaku has come under intense scrutiny after amassing just seven touches during Chelsea’s win at Crystal Palace over the weekend.

Opta sensationally revealed that Lukaku broke the record for the fewest number of touches for a player who featured in 90 minutes of a Premier League game since the data was first collected in 2003/04.

The first-half at Selhurst Park was particularly quiet for Chelsea’s record signing as he amassed just two touches – one of which came from kick-off – for a worrying statistic that spread like wildfire across Twitter.

However, it’s important to do some zooming out and unpacking when it comes to these viral statistics because Lukaku isn’t completely at fault in the way that some people are making out.

The undoubtedly world-class striker does, after all, feel like a square peg in a round hole right now with Thomas Tuchel’s tactics at Stamford Bridge not necessarily meshing with Lukaku’s best attributes.

Plus, there are misconceptions surrounding the ‘touches’ statistic in that Lukaku may well have physically made contact with the ball more than the seven times attributed to him.

Receiving a pass, dribbling with the ball and then moving it on in one continuous movement would be considered as a single touch in the eyes of statistics, so it’s important to note that things aren’t quite as bad as they seem.

Nevertheless, all that being said, there’s no denying that Lukaku’s output in south London wasn’t ideal and you can forgive Chelsea fans for expecting more from their £97.5-million purchase.

As such, here at GIVEMESPORT, we wanted to do some more digging on the whole ‘seven touches’ thing by assessing just how Lukaku factors into the wider Premier League picture this season.

To do that, we