'Elite goalscorer' Lukaku can still be a major asset for Chelsea, insists former boss

The Belgian striker is heading back to the Blues this summer and his former national team boss Roberto Martinez insists the 'elite' goalscorer can still be a major asset.

There is a big question mark over Lukaku's future with Chelsea after Inter Milan decided not to turn his loan spell into a permanent return.

The 30-year-old has spent the last season in the wilderness in terms of uncertainty over his immediate future.

Brought back to Chelsea to great fanfare - and to the incredible tune of £97.5million - as a Serie A champion in the summer of 2021, Lukaku failed to live up to expectations back in west London and was soon courting a move back to Inter.

That ultimately came the following summer, but the Nerazzurri soon found that he was not the same player who fired them to Scudetto glory.

Injuries and a lack of form restricted Lukaku to 14 goals and six assists in 35 games this season, as the club finished third in the table - not an awful tally, but nowhere near the 30 goals and ten assists he managed in that title-winning campaign of 2020/21.

Now he is due to return to Chelsea - although not before one last game for Inter, in the Champions League final against Man City - but he could find the club a very different place with Pochettino in charge.

One of Pochettino's biggest strengths as a coach is his man-management, and there is every chance the Argentine coach could be the man to get Lukaku back to his best for the Blues.

And Martinez has urged the new Chelsea boss to play to Lukaku's strengths next season to really get the best out of him.

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"I've always had a special connection with Rom because I always wanted to see Rom scoring goals," Martinez said in an exclusive interview with talkSPORT Breakfast.

"Every player needs to have an outstanding quality and Romelu is a goalscorer - he can finish with his left, with his right, he is powerful, he can get away from defenders.

"The problem we've had with Romelu, and I've seen it as a national team coach looking from the outside, is that he's always been asked to do things he cannot do.

"When you start asking a player to do things away from your outstanding quality, there will be moments where he doesn't fit in

"If you look at his numbers in terms of goals, for the national team he is the highest scorer in their history, highest goalscorer at Everton [in the Premier League], you look throughout the numbers in the elite group of players.

"Then there is so much talk about how he should be holding up the ball, he should be linking up playing, he should be doing more off the ball, i think this is a shame when we start to analyse players from that point of view.

"I don't think he's ever been rated in the UK in the way he's rated away from it.

"You have to play to his strengths.

"I think it's a fair point to make that the No.9 is the player who relies more on the other ten players, and it's a good example with what we've seen from Erling Haaland this season at Man City - and he is clearly one of the finest goalscorers the game has ever had.

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"It's about style, it's about the partnership, who is going to be the last man who is giving you the ball.

"It's about that understanding from the other players of what your No.9 can do."