Chelsea and Inter Milan agreed upon a club-record fee for the former, to bring Romelu Lukaku back to England. Having won the Serie A with Inter Milan under Antonio Conte, Lukaku decided to make this big money move to Chelsea to work under Thomas Tuchel. He scored on his debut against Arsenal, and has netted five goals across 15 appearances.
His agent Federico Pastorello has spoken about Lukaku’s future will talking to Tuto Sport, and has mentioned that one fine day, he will be returning to Italy. Pastorello is also the agent of manager Antonio Conte, and he was pivotal in the Italian moving to Chelsea in 2016, eventually winning the Premier League in his first season.
Pastorello revealed in this interview that Conte wanted Lukaku to join Chelsea in 2017, right after their league triumph. He went on to add that Lukaku declined that proposal to join Manchester United, where he scored 42 times in 96 appearances before moving to Inter Milan.
“I was the architect of Antonio Conte’s move to Chelsea and after the Premier League victory, he wanted Lukaku. Romelu was playing for Everton at that time.
I met him and told him that Conte would have been the ideal coach for him, but he picked Manchester United.
After one year, once he had left his previous agent, he called me with a new number. He told me that everything I had told him the first time we met, had become real. So he wanted me to become his new agent,”
Pastorello said about the Belgian striker.
It hasn’t been the most impressive of returns to the country for Lukaku, who first represented Chelsea when he came here in 2011. He moved to Everton in 2013 and started making his presence felt, scoring over 100 times for the club, warranting his 75 million pounds move to Manchester United under Jose Mourinho.
In his first season for the Red Devils, he finished as the highest goal-scorer for the club, and after Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was made permanent manager towards the end of 2018/19 season, it became evident that the player was seeking a move away, having struggled to settle into the new team. He then made an 80 million pound move to Inter Milan, and went on to add a league title to his credit.