Romelu Lukaku’s Chelsea nightmare is set to come to an end as he closes in on a return to Inter Milan on loan.
The club have agreed an €8 million loan fee with add-ons that will see Lukaku spend the 2022-23 season back in Serie A.
The Belgian striker returned to Stamford Bridge last summer with unfinished business in a £97.5 million club-record deal that has, simply put, failed to materialise as club and player had hoped. He signed a five-year deal last summer and the decision to loan him out just 12 months later suggests Chelsea could be willing to cut their losses on the troubled move long before his contract is due to expire in 2026.
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The 29-year-old enjoyed a fruitful two-year spell with the Nerazzurri between 2019 and 2021, winning the 2020-21 Serie A title - the club’s first league triumph in 11 years - and scoring 64 goals in 95 appearances.
He was unable to reach anywhere near that kind of form in west London last year, only managing to score 15 goals in 44 appearances, with just eight of them coming in the Premier League in 26 matches. Lukaku clearly struggled to adapt to Thomas Tuchel’s system and could not have the impact that he was expected to for the substantial transfer fee Chelsea paid for him.
Breaking down the staggering cost of his underwhelming move back to west London, his 44 appearances for the Blues cost £2,215,909.09 per game, while each goal cost exactly £6,500,000.
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