Romelu Lukaku has apologised for his controversial interview in which he revealed his unhappiness at Chelsea and is available to play in Wednesday’s Carabao Cup semi-final first leg against Tottenham.
Blues boss Thomas Tuchel revealed Belgium striker Lukaku feels responsible and determined to “clean the mess up”, after an interview with Sky Italy that was released last Thursday but conducted three weeks previously.
Club-record signing Lukaku was stood down for Sunday’s 2-2 Premier League draw with Liverpool, but crunch talks on Monday have cleared the air.
Tuchel has insisted he is now satisfied Lukaku did not intend to cause such deep damage and has accepted the £98million man’s apology as fully genuine.
“First of all we were even in the background happy that we took the time that it needed to look calmly on it and talk calmly,” Tuchel said.
“He apologised and is back in the squad for (Tuesday’s) training.
“For me the most important thing was to understand and clearly understand and believe that it was not intentional.
“He did not do this intentionally to create noise in front of such a big game.
“And it’s the very first time even he has behaved like this.”
While Tuchel is pleased to have Lukaku back in contention for selection, the German coach also insisted the former Inter Milan star must now take responsibility himself to resolve the commotion.
“It’s not that big as maybe people want it to be, but it’s also not small,” Tuchel said.
“But it is small enough to stay calm, accept an apology and to move on forward. He’s very aware of what happened and what he created and he feels the responsibility to clean the mess up.
“Maybe we will have a bit of smell still from it, of course. He can handle it, but he also has no other choice.
“He cannot expect everybody to be super happy the very next day.
“But he’s still our player and we have good, good reasons and a lot of reasons to make him play for us, and to convince him and to fight hard that he’s our player. We’re happy he’s our player, we will protect him.”
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