Romelu Lukaku is the remedy to Chelsea's greatest shortcoming
At one stage last season, Kai Havertz went 15 games without a goal. Timo Werner had droughts of 12 and 11 games. Chelsea’s response was to re-sign a player with no goals in 15 appearances for them.
It is a deceptive interpretation of Romelu Lukaku’s record. The last of those 15 games came eight years ago. Only four were starts. He has been rehired as the guarantee of goals, a man with 315 for club and country at 28.
He has been bought to remedy Chelsea’s greatest shortcoming in a season when Jorginho, with a mere seven, was their top scorer in the Premier League.
Only two teams topped their 553 shots but seven got more than their 58 goals. Chelsea underperformed their expected goals (xG) by 12.3; only Brighton, Fulham and Sheffield United fared worse.
Chelsea’s nine percent chance-conversion rate put them in the bottom half, and way behind Tottenham (14) and Manchester City (13). Lukaku’s personal rate in Serie A was 20: in each of the last five seasons, it has been between 18 and 22. Last season, only seven Premier League players bettered his conversion rate and no one scored 20 or more goals with a 20 percent conversion rate.
The Belgian’s record is dramatically better than those of Chelsea’s other attackers. Last season, Havertz scored from 11 percent of his Premier League shots, Christian Pulisic and Callum Hudson-Odoi nine, Werner eight and Mason Mount and Hakim Ziyech both six.
Lukaku's shot volume is a plus
Part of Lukaku’s appeal lies in the volume of shots he has: he has had nine seasons of at least 40 league attempts on target. Only six players had 40 Premier League efforts on target last season.
Lukaku has done a double – scoring at least 20 league goals and getting a goal from at least 40 percent of his attempts on target – three times in the last five seasons. Only Harry Kane did it in the Premier League last year.
And when his efforts are on target, it is a sign of his calibre as a finisher that goalkeepers often find themselves beaten. Excluding penalties, Lukaku scored from 43 percent of his shots on target last season. It was no coincidence; it was 41 percent in 2019-20 and 44 percent in 2016-17. At Manchester United, it was 37 and 36 percent in seasons some felt were underwhelming.
Perhaps there is an irony that Tammy Abraham, who has been sold to Roma, scored from 43 and 46 percent of his efforts in the last two seasons and Thomas Tuchel was quick to omit him. But only four Chelsea players scored from more than one-third of their attempts on target last season: the departed Abraham, Olivier Giroud and two defenders.
But Lukaku’s record is dramatically better than those of the remaining attackers. The starkest contrast was with Werner, who had 31 shots on target last season and just six goals. The German had produced Lukaku-like figures in his last two seasons at Leipzig, scoring with 42 percent of his attempts on target in both, but his career record is more mixed.
Better positions, better chances
Lukaku is less of a shotaholic than some. He averaged 2.98 and 3.00 efforts per 95 minutes in two seasons with Inter Milan. The latter figure would have put him 16th in the Premier League, while his total of 96 in his second Serie A campaign would ranked seventh in the English top flight, but it is also notable his average shot distance in both seasons was under 15 yards.
The English top flight’s three most prolific shooters – Kane, Mohamed Salah and Bruno Fernandes – had far more long-range efforts. Lukaku gets into scoring positions before taking aim.
Only six of 128 league goals in last six seasons came from outside the box. That should suit Chelsea. They were arguably at their worst inside the penalty area last season. They underperformed their expected goals by 4.97 in the six-yard box and a further 4.59 in the rest of the 18-yard zone, with Werner the worst offender.
Lukaku usually beats his expected goals, but apart from in 2016-17, when he outperformed it by 6.85, rarely dramatically. But he gets into the position to score: his xG per 95 minutes last season was 0.70, far better than any remaining Chelsea player (Werner at 0.42 came closest, though the departed Giroud, at 0.62, and Abraham, at 0.52, fared better).
Where that stands out, however, is in comparison with his new Premier League rivals: it would put him top among footballers who played five hundred minutes or more. Kane, at 0.63, was the nearest among regular scorers. That was a career-high for Lukaku, his xG per 95 has been rising, from 0.52 to 0.57 to 0.70.
A reason for reservations about Lukaku is his big-game record. Only one of his 28 Premier League goals for United was against 'big six' opponents. Equally, under Tuchel, they specialised in beating top teams but failed to score against Wolves, Leeds and Brighton whereas in Serie A Inter drew a solitary blank, away at Udinese.
Creativity another element to Lukaku's game
But there is another argument for Lukaku. He will be seen as the finisher in chief, but he was more creative than any of his new teammates. He got 11 assists in Serie A (and was directly involved in 35 goals, to Kane’s 37 in the Premier League).
Werner was Chelsea’s leading assister, on eight and if Lukaku’s numbers may have been an outlier (his previous best was seven and his xA was 8.39), and xA per 90, of 0.26, put him behind only Ziyech and Mount among the possible regulars.
His 3.56 shot-creating actions per 90 minutes was below Ziyech and Mount, plus Pulisic (by a mere 0.02) but comfortably ahead of Havertz and Werner.
But if no Chelsea player has been in double figures for Premier League assists since Eden Hazard, there may be more meaningful targets. Diego Costa was the last Chelsea player to get 20 league goals in a season in 2016-17, but no one has topped 20 since Didier Drogba’s 29 in 2009-10.
In contrast, Lukaku has had campaigns of 23, 24 and 25 since then. Drogba was Chelsea’s last Golden Boot winner. The ‘baby Drogba’, as he used to be nicknamed, could be the next.
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