For the past few years, I’ve raved about Romelu Lukaku’s attributes every time I’ve spoken about him.
He’s big, strong and great with his back to goal – I’m a massive advocate of the way he plays.
Love him as I do, however, I still can’t say the Belgian has developed into the elite, world-level player I hoped and believed he would.
Which is why I wonder if Chelsea are making a mistake in trying to re-sign him in a deal that would make him a British record transfer.
I realise Lukaku follows the Stamford Bridge lineage of Didier Drogba, Diego Costa and Olivier Giroud, while Thomas Tuchel is after that type of player.
But I just don’t see him taking them that much closer to the Premier League title, or even guaranteeing they will defend their Champions League title this season.
Tuchel would have been much better off throwing the kitchen sink at Harry Kane and offering to pay Tottenham £10million more than Manchester City’s highest bid.
I get he might have tried and that Kane might have said, ‘I’ve set my heart on City’, and, as a result, the Blues have had to look elsewhere.
I also understand that, Kane and Robert Lewandowski aside, there isn’t exactly a plethora of A*, classic line-leaders in world football right now.
But given the quality creators and runners Tuchel already has in his team, he only needs someone who can stick the ball in the net from five or 10 yards.
And there are plenty of more mobile forwards than Lukaku, who has bulked up a lot, who’d do it with the service they’d get at Chelsea and who would cost around £40m to £50m rather than £110m or £120m.
One of the things I really liked about Lukaku was the fact he took himself off to West Brom and Everton on loan, and then Everton on a permanent deal, after things turned sour for him under Jose Mourinho.
They were good moves in terms of learning his craft in the top division and he really earned his move to Manchester United.
The trouble is, he is still pretty much the Lukaku who went to United in 2017 and Inter Milan two years later.
And, at 28, he still isn’t the finished article I believed he would be.
As someone who has watched him a lot, I know in the first 10 or 15 minutes of a game whether he is going to play well or not.
I’m not talking about scoring goals, because he will always do that, but whether his first touch will be what it should be or whether it will be the first touch of a trampoline.
Tuchel wants Lukaku to bring Chelsea’s runners into the game and there are times he doesn’t do that well enough.
People will say as that the goals he has scored to help Inter to the title in Italy makes me wrong but, the top two or three teams aside, there is some serious dross in Serie A.
And Chelsea don’t need a flat-track bully who scores the third or fourth goal in a 4-0 win, they need someone who, like Drogba, will score the only goal in a tight, tough Premier League game or the decisive goal in a Champions League semi-final or final.
I say all this through gritted teeth because I still love watching Lukaku.
And if the deal goes through as I expect it to then I will be as thrilled as anyone if he can come back to England and prove me wrong.
