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“Benching Lukaku for an extremely important match for complaining to the press seems petulant to me,” says Zach Neeley. “If I was one of his teammates, I would be very frustrated that he wasn’t just fined and the best team put out. (Benching may be an American term that makes less sense when a place on the bench is something of value.)”
Well, there’s a decent argument that leaving him out improves the team, given his atrocious big-game record, but he’s not even on the bench so it’s clearly a punishment. I think it’s the right decision; that interview was preposterous. If you just fine him it’s likely to be the thin end of the wedge, and Chelsea managers are vulnerable enough to player power at the best of times.