Romelu Lukaku has long since been an Inter Milan player, but that hasn’t stopped the club’s sporting director, Piero Ausilio, from reigniting the war of words with the Belgian hit-man.
Currently on loan to Roma from Chelsea, the player can join the Giallorossi permanently in the summer if they part with in the region of £40m to secure his services.
It isn’t clear at this stage if such a move will be forthcoming, however, it’s abundantly clear that he’ll never be welcomed back to the San Siro with open arms.
“I prefer not to talk about a player currently at another club, I have never done that in recent months,” Ausilio was quoted as saying by the Daily Mail.
“I say that I like to think about the present and the future, Lukaku is part of the past: with him, we won a Scudetto, lost two finals, and he brought us an important capital gain.
“What happened? I prefer not to talk about it. All I’m saying is that there has to be politeness and respect: things were obviously going on, but at a certain point these conditions came to an end.
“There are deals that don’t get done, but if there is respect it is never a problem. When, on the other hand, one hides or sends replies via other people, then one thinks about moving on.
“For me it is a close chapter since July 8, there are no regrets. The famous phone call to Lukaku? It was something decided, nothing special. I told Romelu what I thought, after I hadn’t been able to contact him for a while.”
At best, Ausilio’s recollections show a lack of respect from Lukaku and a deep lack of professionalism from him.
That arguably goes some way to explaining why the west Londoners want to wash their hands of him too.
It should be remembered that however good a player is, he is still just an employee of a football club. If his values and way of working aren’t aligned with his employers then they’ve every right to make the decision to put him on the market.
Where Lukaku has to be careful of course is if Roma decide that they’re unwilling to part with the asking price, which would then leave the Belgian in a footballing no man’s land with, perhaps, only the Saudi Pro League to turn towards.