A former Manchester United star lambasted the club for their treatment of him
Paul Pogba of Manchester United (L) celebrates as he scores his team's first goal from the penalty spot against West Ham United at Old Trafford on April 13, 2019, with Anthony Martial (R) and Romelu Lukaku (C)
Romelu Lukaku's tenure at Manchester United lasted just two years(Image: Gareth Copley/Getty Images)
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Romelu Lukaku remains on track to reach 100 international goals in an extraordinary national team career with Belgium. The Fenerbahce striker could feature in the country's Nations League clash against Turkey on Friday night (October 2) and has long been the go-to man for his nation, for whom he's scored 93 goals in 133 games.
It's form he never quite managed at Manchester United. The 33-year-old joined the Old Trafford outfit from Everton in a £75million deal in 2017. Despite many expecting Lukaku to lead the line for United for years to come, especially after coming off a career-best 25-goal season for the Toffees, the striker lasted just two years at Old Trafford.
His goalscoring record of 42 goals in 96 across all competitions for United was a respectable tally, but not what United were likely expecting for the fee they invested in him. He clinched a £74m move to Inter Milan in the summer of 2019 and claimed he didn't feel protected by the club after reports of his uncertain future were constant.
Lukaku appeared on NBA champion Josh Hart’s LightHarted podcast in an interview that was recorded before his move to Italy. He said: "A lot of stuff has been said where I didn’t feel protected. I felt like a lot of rumours, ‘Rom going there’, ‘They don’t want Rom’, and nobody came out to shut it down.
"It was for a good three, four weeks. I’m waiting for someone to come out and shut it down. It didn’t happen. I had my conversation, told them it was better to go our separate ways. If you don’t want to protect somebody, all these rumours come out.
"I just wanted you to say: ‘Rom is going to fight for his place,’ but it never happened for four, five months. If you’re happy, you find a way. It doesn’t matter if you’re on the bench or starting but nobody told me that was the situation, so I thought for two, three weeks to analyse, see all this s*** coming out in the media."
The ex-Chelsea and Everton striker appeared to suggest he knew where leaks about his future had originated from and claimed he was among the scapegoats at United when the side had lost games.
Romelu Lukaku talking to Jose Mourinho
Romelu Lukaku didn't reach the heights expected of him at Old Trafford(Image: Getty Images)
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He explained: "Who leaks it? Not me. Not my agent. I see it on my phone come out of nowhere. I told them it’s not good for me to be at a place where I’m not wanted. We’re not stupid. They consider us dumb but we are not dumb. We know who is doing leaks and stuff.
"I told them, you can’t be working like this, it’s better for me to go now. They have to find somebody [to blame]," he said. "It is Pogba, it is me or it is Alexis. It’s the three of us all the time. For me, I just see it in many ways."
Lukaku reinvented himself at Inter Milan with 64 goals scored in 95 games while leading the Italian giants to the Serie A title in 2020. His exploits saw him clinch a return to Stamford Bridge in 2021 for £90m, but his reunion with Chelsea was disastrous.
In his three years in west London, he spent just one of them at the club, with two seasons spent on loan, first back at Inter Milan and another with Roma. He secured a permanent move to Napoli in 2024 and won his second league title in his debut campaign in Naples. After an injury-ravaged second season at the club, he joined Fenerbahce this past summer.
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