Lukaku reveals how close friend Drogba helped with Chelsea return
Romelu Lukaku has lifted the lid on his close friendship with Didier Drogba, revealing he has been in constant contact with the Chelsea legend as he prepared to return to Stamford Bridge.
The strike duo were Blues team-mates for one season following Lukaku’s arrival as a teenager from Anderlecht in 2011 and the Belgian has previously spoken of how influential the likes of Drogba and Nicolas Anelka were on his early career.
Lukaku and Drogba have remained close friends since then, with the Ivorian among the first to celebrate his former mentee’s £97.5million club-record move back to Chelsea from Serie A champions Inter Milan last week.
Expanding on his friendship with Drogba in an interview with Chelsea’s official website, Lukaku said: “Our relationship means the world to me. It’s not like we talk once a month, I talk to the guy every few days!
“We have a group chat so we’re constantly communicating and I’ve been on the phone with him a bit more in the past two weeks.
“I had a lot of questions to ask and he still knows a lot of people here so he really prepared me well with the last details.
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“Now I just need to get to know the players and the manager a bit better and just be available as quickly as possible for the team.”
Due to quarantine restrictions, Lukaku was unable to make his second debut for Chelsea in Saturday’s 2021/22 Premier League opener against Crystal Palace, with Thomas Tuchel’s side following up their dramatic Uefa Super Cup penalty shootout win over Villarreal in Belfast with an impressive 3-0 defeat of Patrick Vieira’s side.
However, Lukaku is due to start training with his new team-mates at Cobham on Tuesday and is in line to feature when Chelsea battle Arsenal at Emirates Stadium in another London derby on Sunday.