A few games into the season Thomas Tuchel took Ben Chilwell aside and told him to stop trying quite so hard. Although it was easy to understand why the left-back was so eager to prove himself in sessions at Chelsea’s Cobham training base. He’d had a rough few months.
From starting in and winning the Champions League final in May, Chilwell’s chances had evaporated due to a mixture of bad luck and timing. He was expected to play an important part for England in the European Championship, appeared toe-to-toe with Luke Shaw for the left-back slot, only to discover a right-back — Kieran Trippier — was preferred at left-back in the tournament’s opening game against Croatia and that he had not even made the bench.
Even if England manager Gareth Southgate had planned to give Chilwell some minutes, the defender was forced to isolate — alongside Mason Mount — after being caught after England played Scotland having a lengthy chat with Chelsea team-mate Billy Gilmour, who later tested positive for Covid-19. Shaw then took the Euros by storm.
Is there a part of Chilwell that wishes he never stopped to talk to his friend? “If I thought like that it would just eat up at you,” Chilwell said. “In hindsight, maybe we could have just not spoken to Billy but we would have never known.
“Billy is a good friend and had a good game and I wanted to congratulate him. I’m sure Mase was the same. Of course, it ended up having a big impact on my summer but I don’t talk about ‘I should have done this or that’ or hindsight.”
After a disappointing summer, Chilwell returned to Chelsea ready to go, only to find himself out of a starting XI again. “You think ‘I’m going back to Chelsea, it’s a new season and the last game I played was the Champions League final’ so of course, it was disappointing because as a footballer I want to play every single match that I’m fit for.”
Marcos Alonso was Tuchel’s first-choice for the first 10 games and the uber-competitive Chilwell started to give it all — and then some — in training, to the point his manager decided to have a word.
“When I step out onto the pitch, on the training pitch, that’s when I want to show that I’m better than them and they’re trying to show they’re better than me,” Chilwell said.
Premier League goals by defenders this season
- Reece James (Chelsea) – 4
- Ben Chilwell (Chelsea) – 3
- Trevoh Chalobah (Chelsea) – 2
- Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool, Marcos Alonso (Chelsea), Aaron Cresswell (West Ham)* – 1
*Selected defenders
Tuchel told reporters he believed Chilwell was struggling with mental fatigue after the European Championship but the defender thinks it was a slight miscommunication.
“I think it wasn’t so much mental fatigue,” he explained. “I think it was more I was so eager to get back playing football, it was maybe coming across that I wanted it a bit too much.
“Me and the manager at Chelsea had a very honest conversation where he did say to me ‘you know, I feel like mentally at the moment you’re just, in training, you’re pushing a bit too much to try and get back in the team – we love you here, we know the qualities you possess just relax a little bit, you’re going to get back in’.
“Which for me was brilliant to hear and then it was just about being patient and making sure that I was ready so that when I was called upon to play I could do my best for the team.”
Chilwell is back now, buoyed by a spell of four goals in five games, and expected to start when England play Albania on Friday. He has learned, however, to accept that this is part of playing at the sharp end of elite football — for a club considered Premier League and Champions League contenders and a national team who finished runners-up of the last European Championship and reached the semi-finals of the last World Cup.
“It was difficult [but] these are things that are going to happen in the majority of players in their professional career where they have low moments, high moments,” he said. “The way I try to look at it, I was disappointed that I wasn’t playing in such a massive competition in England – I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed. But the way I was trying to go into the whole thing was that it happens to a lot of people in football. I just need to make sure I’m ready, I’ll come through this stronger and better on the other side.”
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3n3TeLm
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