Romelu Lukaku performed an enormous half in Chelsea lacking out on the signing of Jeremy Doku earlier in his profession. Anderlecht academy boss Jean Kindermans has revealed that the striker personally suggested the winger to remain put and reject curiosity from the likes of the Blues.

Like Lukaku, Doku got here via the ranks at Anderlecht. Lukaku is the oldest of the 2 by 9 years so their paths initially didn't cross.

However, he has since had an affect on his profession path. When Doku was simply 15, he acquired curiosity from prime golf equipment in Europe.

Chelsea have been considered one of them and Anderlecht have been discovering it laborious to maintain maintain of their finest expertise. But that's the place Lukaku stepped in.

Kindermans says that Lukaku despatched a video to Doku and his household, advising them to proceed at Anderlecht as a substitute of taking a suggestion from elsewhere. Doku went on to make his senior debut a yr later on the age of 16 and made 37 appearances for the Belgian membership earlier than becoming a member of Rennes in 2020.

Kindermans instructed final weekend's version of the Sunday Mirror: "I remember taking Romelu into my office about the problem of getting young players to commit to us – Doku in particular. Romelu replied, ‘Come on, pass your phone to me, I’m going to call him’.

"But I didn’t need to do this as a result of a cellphone name will get rapidly forgotten. So, as a substitute, I bought Romelu to persuade Jeremy to remain. I nonetheless have the video on my cellphone.

"On it, you can hear Romelu giving advice to the Doku family, saying ‘Hey, guys, stay with Anderlecht for a while, you’re good’ and so on."