Chelsea Transfer News: Blues Would Regret Selling Romelu Lukaku

Chelsea appear to be willing to sell Romelu Lukaku after this summer's World Cup in what would surely be a rash decision from manager Jose Mourinho.

Lukaku, currently on loan at Everton, is set to star in Belgium's World Cup squad after injury ruled out Aston Villa's Christian Benteke. While Chelsea are understood to be willing to sell the striker, Sami Mokbel of the Daily Mail reports that the Blues will wait until later this summer to offload their man:

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While Chelsea already value the 20-year-old striker at in-excess of £20million there is a sense at Stamford Bridge that his price tag will inflate significantly if he has a productive tournament in Brazil.

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However, given the dearth of quality forward options at Chelsea, it seems foolish of Mourinho to dispose of the dynamic 20-year-old.

Lukaku has scored 13 goals in the Premier League this season, just one short of Chelsea's most prolific goalscorer, Eden Hazard, and five more than striker Samuel Eto'o.

Chelsea have been without a goalscorer since Didier Drogba's 2012 move to Shanghai Shenhua. Fernando Torres has been a resounding failure since arriving at Stamford Bridge for a club-record £50 million. As Massimo Marioni of Metro reports, Mourinho admitted as much after last Wednesday's 3-1 loss to Paris Saint-Germain:

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I’m not happy with my strikers’ performances so I had to try things. [...]

Football is [...] about scoring goals, getting behind, and that is for strikers. Real strikers. And I had to try.

It’s difficult for us to score goals, especially when the games are tight. It’s difficult for us to transform the half-chances into chances.

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Mourinho would therefore do well to consider bringing Lukaku into the Chelsea team permanently. Offloading the misfiring Torres, who is 10 years older than Lukaku, would be a better course of action than dispensing of the Belgian.

Chelsea know they need a new goalscorer. Reports abound that they are targeting Atletico Madrid's prolific Diego Costa, as suggested by Jamie Redknapp of Sky Sports:

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[Diego Costa] is, make no mistake, a brilliant striker. He’s got that pace and is almost Drogba-like with his ability to run beyond people. He has a left foot, he can drive and he can score his own goals.

When we look at Chelsea at the moment I don’t see Torres or Eto’o as the answer for the long term and don’t have the ability to do what Diego Costa can do.

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Teaming Costa up with Lukaku would be a far more potent threat than anything Chelsea have to offer at the moment.

And with Liverpool's Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge scoring 49 goals between them this season, the importance of a threatening strike partnership is there for all to see.