Is Lukaku the next Chelsea Super Star?

LONDON — When Romelu Lukaku was scoring goals as a boy against men in the Belgian league, he had visions of growing into the next Didier Drogba.

There is an uncanny physical resemblance. And over the past week, the 20-year-old Lukaku, has scored wearing Drogba’s old color — Chelsea blue — against teams in Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur.

“Leave Didier where he is, at the top of Chelsea’s history,” Coach José Mourinho told journalists who were following the team’s preseason tour this week in Asia. “And leave Lukaku to work hard. The kid is good.” So far, so thrillingly good.

Lukaku was a prodigy when he was bought by Anderlecht, the Brussels club, when he was 16. He was sold for £10 million to Chelsea when he was 18, and last season he was loaned out to another English Premier League club.

Lukaku is still a developing talent. He is, perhaps, fully grown in the physical sense: at 1.91 meters, or 6-foot-3, he is pretty close to the muscular presence that Drogba was. And though he scored 17 goals in 35 games for West Brom last season (many of them as a match-winning or match-saving substitute), he will have to move mountains to get game time at Chelsea.

Read More: NY Times

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