Romelu Lukaku sends message to Chelsea over Inter future
Romelu Lukaku has hinted that he is intent on staying at Inter beyond the expiration of his current loan move to the club.
The Belgian striker is currently on loan at I Nerazzurri for the 2022/23 season from Chelsea, having struggled for form during his return to Stamford Bridge for a reported £97.5m. Lukaku scored just eight Premier League goals for the Blues before being shipped out on loan back to Inter - the club Chelsea signed him from in 2021.
The hope was that Lukaku could re-find the form he showed at Inter during his previous two-year spell at San Siro, when he scored 64 goals to lead the club to a Serie A title.
That hasn't proven to be the case however, as the forward has continued to struggle in front of goal - scoring just five Serie A goals this season thus far. Two of said five came in a much-improved performance at the weekend during Inter's clash with Empoli, a game in which the Belgian looked much more like the Lukaku of old.
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Lukaku was asked by Sky Sport Italia about his future after the game and he confessed that he wants to stay with the club for the foreseeable future.
"I have an excellent relationship with the fans and I’ve always tried to give everything for Inter because it gave me the opportunity to win two years ago," he began. "This club has allowed me to become who I am today.
‘Yes [I want to stay at Inter], but guys you have to pay attention to those things because the others [talk]. My goal is to give my best for Inter."
Inter CEO on Lukaku's future
At the end of February, Inter's CEO Giuseppe Marotta confirmed that Lukaku is set to return to Chelsea at the end of the 2022/23 season, but the club will assess their options regarding a future transfer or an extension of his current loan deal in the summer:
"Talking about [Lukaku staying] is premature, at the moment we have the goal of finishing the season in the best possible way, then we will have to think about the hypotheses for next year," Marotta told Sky Sport Italia.
"Lukaku is a Chelsea player today. At the end of the season, he will return there and then a new scenario will open up and we'll see what to do.
"He wants to stay, it is an intention that he has expressed several times, and we will see if we will be able to negotiate his return with us."