Whilst Inter fans no longer miss Romelu Lukaku following his move to Chelsea, it’s incredibly likely that his former attacking partner Lautaro Martinez does.
The 24-year-old Argentinian forward has not scored in his last six consecutive league matches, struggling to maintain consistency, and he is having a lacklustre season by his standards this campaign. Simone Inzaghi launched the partnership of Lautaro and Edin Dzeko in the summer, but despite months of practice, things are still not clicking properly.
There’s a clear lack of chemistry between Lautaro and Dzeko, with the Bosnian having a noticeably different playing style to Lukaku. As reported by La Gazzetta dello Sport, Lautaro now risks losing his starting spot to Alexis Sanchez, who may combine with the former Manchester City and Roma forward better.
Lukaku and Lautaro had a strong partnership together in Milan, which the media quickly dubbed ‘Lu-La’, and the Belgian is also suffering following the end of this working relationship. He has only scored five Premier League goals this season for the Blues, disappointing following his €113m move in the summer. The former Inter star was trending on Twitter in Italy yesterday, with many still remembering his time in the Italian peninsula.
Thomas Tuchel discussed Lukaku’s season so far in a press conference yesterday, saying:
“I still believe he will score because he has done. We need a bit more patience than we maybe all have or wanted to have with his signing. We demand a lot of our strikers in terms of intensity, so there are several reasons why things are maybe like this, but we are on it.
“There are teams who heavily rely on one goalscorer – that is no secret – but there are teams, like Manchester City, who don’t heavily rely on one person and have it on more shoulders.
“So both ways work and we want to bring Romelu to better situations, we want to create more situations, we want to understand him better and his teammates want to understand him better.
“It’s an ongoing process. We still have trust because he has proved at any club he has played for he is the guy who gets the last touch on attacks – he had a very important goal in the Club World Cup final.
“Disappointed is not the right word but, of course, we thought for him, and for him as well I’m pretty sure, he wanted to produce the numbers right from the start. But we are all humans and we keep on going. We demand a lot defensively from our strikers as well.”
Tuchel, carezza a Lukaku: "Io deluso? Non è la parola giusta, serve pazienza" https://t.co/r93Vp4nDqF
— FcInterNews.it (@FcInterNewsit) February 18, 2022
Latauro has been absolute garbage this season. He’s incredibly inconsistent and he doesn’t create or finish chances like a clinical striker. Its time for Alexis to get the start regularly. We look toothless with Latauro on the field and it’s clear he has NO confidence.