Chelsea manager, Thomas Tuchel, has said Romelu Lukaku has apologized for last week’s interview and is in contention to return for their Wednesday’s Carabao Cup game against Tottenham.
In the controversial interview, Lukaku claimed he was unhappy with the situation at Stamford Bridge and indicated he had issues with Tuchel’s style of play.
After standing the club-record signing down for Sunday’s 2-2 Premier League draw with Liverpool, Tuchel has since held clear-the-air talks with the Chelsea striker. The head coach said Lukaku feels responsible and determined to “clean the mess up” and revealed he is back in the squad for training ahead of the visit of Spurs.
“First of all, we were even in the background happy that we took the time that it needed to look calmly on it and talk calmly,” Tuchel said.
“He has apologised and is back in the squad for today’s training [session] later.
“We have had enough time to clear the air and move on.
“For me, the most important thing was to understand and clearly understand and believe that it was not intentional.
“He did not do this intentionally to create noise in front of such a big game.”
While Tuchel is happy to have Lukaku back in contention for selection, the German coach also insisted the former Inter Milan star must now take responsibility himself to resolve the commotion.
“It’s not that big as maybe people want it to be, but it’s also not small,” said Tuchel.
“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.”
