Paolo Di Canio has criticized Chelsea’s £98million summer signing, Romelu Lukaku for his recent dry spell and is clearly unimpressed by the Belgian.
On the Sky Calcio Club show, the 53-year-old Di Canio said, ‘I heard (Giuseppe) Bergomi comparing (Napoli striker Victor) Osimhen and Lukaku. But Osimhen has a different spirit, he’s not dulled like him.
‘When the difficulty increased, he scored no goals in five games with Chelsea. And it’s not Chelsea’s fault, they are first (in the table) even without his goals.’
Di Canio, who played more than 100 times for West Ham and scored 47 goals for the club, went on to compare Lukaku with 36-year-old Udinese target man Fernando Llorente.
‘Lukaku does not score. Lukaku is a functional player, as Llorente was in (Antonio) Conte’s Juve”.
‘Even if Lukaku is stronger than Llorente, he is functional to a certain type of game.’
Lukaku could yet prove to be the difference-maker for Chelsea in helping them win the title this season but after a promising start he has struggled for goals in the last 6 games.
He drew a blank in the 1-0 win over Brentford at the weekend and his last goal was on September 11 for the Blues.
Lukaku put the ball into the net in the first half but saw his goal disallowed because he had strayed offside, and later missed a sitter when the ball broke to him inside Brentford’s penalty area, but he blazed over the open goal.
Thomas Tuchel insists he is not worried about Lukaku’s lack of cutting edge in recent weeks. He defended the striker after the Brentford win and said: ‘I am not concerned as I felt him a bit tired, and then isolated because we were defending too deep as a block.
‘I felt him a bit tired. Altogether we produced a very strong 60 to 75 minutes, including Romelu and Timo (Werner).
‘Both of them, Romelu and Timo, were too far away to help us escape the pressure. That was the problem, but I have no concerns.
‘Normally the best thing is that he scores but he is very unselfish at the moment, looking for Timo in good situations.
‘And we had him in the situation (to score), it was a close offside decision.’