Chelsea’s red hot young Belgian striker, Romelu Lukaku on loan at Steve Clarke’s West Brom marked his return to the Baggies starting line-up’ against high flying Swansea scoring his 13th goal of the season which helped lift West Brom up to 7th in the Premier League and bring Swansea back to earth after their Capital One heroics.
Swansea were without a few of their top players but it did not stop them from going ahead in the 33rd minute as Baggies’ old boy Luke Mooore put the Welsh side ahead. It was Lukaku who equalized for West Brom taking a Graham Dorrans ball in his stride before dispatching an accomplished finish past Michel Vorm into the corner of the Swansea goal.
Morrison then won a penalty for the midland side early in the second stanza after being fouled by Routledge but for once Lukaku, entrusted with the penalty on the back of his superb league form was unable to beat the excellent Vorm in the Swansea net and it took an unfortunate defensive richochet off De Guzman for the West Brom winner to find it way into the back of the net and settle this match.
Lukaku did not have his best game of his recent outings but he still managed to be a total nuisance to the Swansea backline and was a good target at set pieces and was a goal threat thoughout the game.
It is beginning to look like Lukaku now would be a big upgrade to Fernando Torres – Lukaku has 13 goals this season from 26 games played with 2 assists and 67 shots on goal this season. Torres on the other hand has 16 goals in 48 appearances for a pretty mediocre return.
If Lukaku was given the the opportunity to remain, train and work with Chelsea’s squad on a full-time basis and no disrespect to West Brom’s squad you would have to think that he could deliver even more once he got settled into playing with a truly world class group of squad mates as those as Chelsea. Congratulations to West Brom for believing in Lukaku and for Steve Clarke in geting so much more from him by building his confidence up using his man managent skills to the fullest with the young Belgian. Should we bring the powerhouse Belgain back into the fold?