"It has nothing to do with his goals but the style Mourinho wants to play. It's all about holding the ball up, chasing down and defending from the front. He has a lot of work to do on that. If he irons out those little deficiencies, you probably have the best centre-forward in the world."
Back in November, Pat Nevin told Off The Ball why Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho was justified in his decision to loan out Romelu Lukaku, despite the lack of firepower provided by his current strikers.
The Belgian, who has been out injured in recent weeks, has scored nine league goals which is almost as many as the total of 11 mustered by Samuel Eto'o, Fernando Torres and Demba Ba between them. However, he has only scored once in the last 11 games for which he has been available.
But his shot accuracy of 62 per cent is vastly superior to Ba (36) and Torres (55) as well as marginally better than three-time Champions League winner Eto'o (61).
Shot conversion graphic courtesy of Squawka. Find more graphs for other players via Squawka
But as Nevin says, clearly there is something keeping irking Mourinho when he thinks of his young protege.
Let's take a look at a few Squawka graphics and statistics to try and get a clearer picture of Lukaku's current deficiencies.
The game which Nevin was most critical of Lukaku was the 3 - 3 draw against Liverpool in which he scored twice.
But it was the work off the ball and away from the penalty area which Nevin was referring to.
In terms of hold up play, Lukaku's passing rate of 64 per cent was generally quite poor in terms of accuracy during that game, which comes close to his average of 65 per cent for the season. That average is far lower than Eto'o (75) and Ba (71), but superior to Torres' 60 per cent rate.
But Nevin's point about defending from the front is an interesting one and in that Liverpool match, Lukaku attempted just one tackle and did not make any interceptions.
In actual fact, he has made just one interception in the entirety of this season and five tackles since he joined Everton on Transfer Deadline Day.
Eto'o and Torres have played fewer league games but have attempted double the number of tackles than Lukaku with 10 each. Of course the different tactical requirements at Everton and Chelsea plays a part in those stats, but it is still telling.
In terms of development, his pass success rate is down 3 per cent on last season when he was on loan at West Brom and made just two interceptions in the entirety of the last campaign.
