Romelu Lukaku opens up on stormy Chelsea exit | OneFootball

Former Chelsea striker Romelu Lukaku revealed the underhand tactics that his former employers deployed to force him into a move away from Stamford Bridge and hinted at the club manipulating the footballing media against him.

Lukaku returned to Chelsea for his second spell at the club in the summer of 2021, arriving as a champion of Italy with Inter for a record fee of £97.5m. The Belgian lasted just one season in west London, scoring eight top-flight goals and failing to produce a single assist across all competitions.

Inter welcomed Lukaku back on a loan deal the following summer but talks over a permanent transfer broke down in 2023, forcing the towering forward into limbo as Mauricio Pochettino made it abundantly clear that he had no future in the English capital. Lukaku eventually joined Roma on loan for the 2023/24 campaign before mercifully extricating himself from Chelsea with a £25m move to Napoli last August.

Looking back on that turbulent summer of 2023, when Inter reportedly walked away from negotiations after an approach from Juventus emerged, Lukaku told Corriere dello Sport this week: "At Chelsea I wasn't alone, [Pierre-Emerick] Aubameyang and [Hakim] Ziyech were also out of the project. They made us change in the youth dressing room. It's business, the club tells you it doesn't want you anymore and often also where you will end up. If you want to leave, however, you can't do it.

"Clubs have relationships with the press and they make you end up in trouble," Lukaku pointedly added, "they make you look like a person you are not. One day I would like to clarify these aspects to the younger ones, explaining who works for them and who against them."

Romelu Lukaku has returned to goalscoring form for Napoli / Giuseppe Bellini/GettyImages

Expanding on that manipulation of media, Lukaku touched on the repeated accusations regarding his work ethic which plagued his time in the Premier League for Chelsea and at Manchester United.

"In England they had the wrong idea," Lukaku insisted. "For them I was lazy, but I never reacted to the attacks. I'm someone who does his job and then goes home. In Italy the judgment has been reversed, here I'm a worker. Now I'm better than when I was at Inter. There I was 101 kilos, here 99."

Lukaku has been reunited with his former Inter manager Antonio Conte at Napoli, spearheading the Neapolitan attack as they are locked in an intriguing battle for the Serie A title.