Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel says he has accepted Romelu Lukaku’s apology for the recent media storm surrounding his comments to Sky Italia.
Still, it also seems pretty clear that the Blues boss is not happy with what went on, as he’s suggested it might still take some time for everyone involved to heal.
Lukaku was a big-money signing from Inter Milan in the summer and has made a decent start, though some fans will undoubtedly have expected better from the Belgium international.
His recent comments will no doubt leave a sour taste, and Tuchel seems to have perfectly summed up how everyone associated with Chelsea is likely to be feeling right now.
“It’s not that big as maybe people want it to be, but it’s also not small,” Tuchel is quoted by the Guardian.
“But it is small enough to stay calm, accept an apology and to move on forward. He’s very aware of what happened and what he created and he feels the responsibility to clean the mess up.
“Maybe we will have a bit of smell still from it, of course. He can handle it, but he also has no other choice. He cannot expect everybody to be super happy the very next day.
“But he’s still our player and we have good, good reasons and a lot of reasons to make him play for us, and to convince him and to fight hard that he’s our player. We’re happy he’s our player, we will protect him.”
It has also been reported by the Daily Mail that some players in the Chelsea squad would like to see some action taken against Lukaku, though it’s not clear if that’s happening.
It will now be interesting to see how CFC recover from this setback, which has come at a difficult time as the team’s form has generally dipped, with the west London giants now likely to be out of the running for the title despite starting the season as one of the big favourites.