In the first leg of the Champions League quarter-final between Chelsea and Lille, the highly valued Lukaku sat on the bench, while all eyes were on his replacement Havertz.
Havertz will be the little mouse in Tuchel's latest experiment, and the purpose of the experiment is to determine whether Lukaku should bear the blame for the recent problems at Chelsea or whether Chelsea as a whole should be held accountable for the problems that have arisen.
While it is unlikely that the bearer or the bearer will get the answer after a game, it is undeniable that Havertz's performance almost immediately made people subconsciously think that Chelsea's recent problems should be Lukaku's back.
From the beginning of the game, Havertz has been looking for opportunities. He could have scored on his third touch after 4 minutes and finally scored on his 8th touch after another great chance to save. With just over 8 minutes into the game, Havertz surpassed the number of touches and scored in the lukaku and Crystal Palace matches, and most importantly, his goals had an impact on the score. That's the most powerful motivator we've seen at Chelsea, and God knows how long it's been since this happened.
Throughout the game, it was clear how much this Chelsea team enjoyed playing alongside Havertz. He wanders around outside of Lukaku's exclusive territory, running through wide spaces and blending into the game while bringing his teammates into the game.
While Lukaku is not running away, he also has some excellent runs in the Crystal Palace game, and all his contributions are far more than the seven touches of the whole game, but Lukaku seems to have a completely different style from his teammates.
And Havertz's run feels more organized. When he's close to goal, the cross will appear; when he falls behind, his teammates will look for him. Chelsea's team-mates seem to know where Havertz is at all times, and the route they have gained is very clear.
Pulisic and Ziyech ran from Havertz into the penalty area; Kante went all the way. Now Chelsea seem to need someone as flexible as Havertz to organize in tandem. He's also in tune with the people around him and the team seems to be expecting Lukaku to do the same, but apparently Lukaku is a player with a completely different style.
Unfortunately, many supporters now blame Lukaku for Chelsea's recent woes and, more importantly, see Chelsea stronger after missing Lukaku. This deepens Lukaku's back-capped mission.
But is this really the case? Can you judge Lukaku's mission in just one game? After all, this game Pulisic played his best game in years, thus making Havertz better. Therefore, the question of whether Lukaku should carry the pot or not is still difficult to have an answer.
Perhaps Tuchel's style is not suitable for a player like Lukaku, but Lukaku has not made enough effort to participate in it.
But what we can be sure of is that when Chelsea's all sides are ready, they are very good in attack. They can control the game, create chances, choose the way they break through the defense, and they can make the game easy whenever they want to.
So Havertz's excellent performance, is there really no reason for Chelsea itself, does it really need Lukaku to carry the pot?
Xiao Bai said the ball, did not know how to pretend to understand. The picture comes from the Internet, invaded and deleted.