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Romelu Lukaku’s barren October

Romelu Lukaku was our biggest acquisition this past summer as we splashed out £75 million on the Belgian striker with the deal potentially rising to £90 million.

The 24-year-old made an instant impact in August and September.  In his first match for us he netted our consolation in the 1-2 defeat to Real Madrid in the UEFA Super Cup.

Lukaku then opened his Premier League account with a brace in our 4-0 thrashing of Joe Hart and West Ham United in our first game of the 2017-18 season.

Our striker then scored in our 4-0 thrashing of Swansea City in Wales the following weekend.  However, he was denied from the penalty spot by Kasper Schmeichel in our 2-0 victory over Leicester City to end August with three goals in as many games.

After the international break to start September, Lukaku returned to score our second equaliser in our 2-2 draw at Stoke City.  This was the first of four successive Premier League matches in which the Belgium star got on the scoresheet.  He finished off our 4-0 route of Everton against his former club before scoring the only goal in our 1-0 win at Southampton.  His final league game in September saw him score the final goal in our 4-0 win over ROy Hodgson’s Crystal Palace.

Also in September, Romelu Lukaku scored in our 3-0 win over FC Basel in the Champions League and a brace in Moscow as we came away from Russia with a 4-1 winner over CSKA.  That meant Lukaku had scored six goals in five games in all competitions in September.

However, it’s been difficult and frustrating for the striker in October who went 473 minutes across six games in three different competitions, without scoring a single goal.

The month started with a 0-0 draw at Liverpool in which Lukaku had our only effort on target all game, firing straight at Simon Mignolet from just inside the penalty area when he could have done better.

Four days later he failed to seriously test Mile Svilar in our 1-0 win at Benfica in the Champions League in which the 18-year-old goalkeeper carried Marcus Rashford’s deep free kick over his own goalline.

Romelu Lukaku then saw few opportunities to score in our surprise 1-2 loss at Huddersfield Town in the Premier League but did provide an excellent assist for Rashford’s consolation.

With a 2-0 lead at Swansea City in the EFL Cup last week, Jose Mourinho brought on his first-choice striker for the final 23 minutes, but he couldn’t end his streak.

Substitute Anthony Martial scored the only goal in our 1-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur this past weekend.  Lukaku played the full 90 minutes and missed a good headed opportunity by striking the outside of the post at 0-0.

Lukaku had a good game against Benfica in the Champions League last night but failed to beat their teenage goalkeeper.

We are at Chelsea on Sunday.  A new month and hopefully a new chapter in the career of Romelu Lukaku whom I am sure would love to score against a team who didn’t give him a chance in English football after signing him.