‘Showing he wants to play’: Micah Richards impressed by Lukaku’s work rate in build-up to winner vs West Ham

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Romelu Lukaku received recognition from Micah Richards for his role in Chelsea’s winner against West Ham United.

Richards highlighted the Belgian’s contribution on Match of the Day 2 last night, following the narrow 1-0 victory at Stamford Bridge.

The tail of the London derby

Thomas Tuchel’s team just squeezed past their London rivals, thanks to a late strike from substitute Christian Pulisic.

Tuchel’s triple change with a quarter of an hour remaining turned out to be the difference between the two sides.

Nearly £200m worth of talent came off the bench all at once, with Lukaku, Pulisic and Hakim Ziyech set the task of altering the events of the afternoon.

And alter them they certainly did.

Craig Dawson, who had been magnificent the entire match, finally let his guard down by pulling Lukaku to the ground inside the area.

Michael Oliver then brandished the red card, having initially only handed Dawson a yellow before a VAR review.

With four minutes of normal time remaining, the pressure piled upon Jorginho’s shoulders.

However, the midfielder made a fool of himself by rolling his shot straight at Lukasz Fabianski.

Lukaku adds to the three points

The Hammers nearly nailed a respectable draw, until Pulisic popped up in the dying embers to save Chelsea from more heartache at home.

But the American’s moment in the spotlight might not have occurred had Lukaku not harried and hassled the Hammers in the build-up to the goal.

He chased down three West Ham players, forcing them to go long and thus giving possession back to Chelsea.

“I want to give Lukaku some credit as well because he’s had a lot of criticism for not working hard,” said Richards.

“I know West Ham were down to ten men, but this is someone showing he wants to play, he wants to work hard.”

Tuchel’s men were then allowed to move the ball up field quickly, ending with Marcos Alonso’s assist to Pulisic.

Although Lukaku failed to get on the score sheet again, he can certainly take pride in impacting proceedings.

The striker now needs to do that from the very start of fixtures to silence his doubters and move forward with Chelsea.

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