“There were clubs interested” – Romano exclusive on why £50m man stayed at Chelsea

The international break has meant there’s been a reduced group training at Cobham this week, and eagle-eyed fans noticed that that gave the chance for some old faces to return.

Both Carney Chukwuemeka and Ben Chilwell have spent their time following the return from our preseason tour of the US training with the “bomb squad” of unwanted players. But a deadline day selling spree reduced that group to just a handful of players, and Chukwuemeka and Chilwell were spotted back with the main group this week, seemingly signalling the end of the freeze out – for now, at least.

Fabrizio Romano has been speaking exclusively to CaughtOffside about the whole affair, with some interesting thoughts on the Chilwell’s stance. The left back refused to leave just to help Chelsea out, preferring to wait for the right move to come along. It never did, but Chilwell wasn’t going to bend. Romano says everyone should respect that:

“This summer there were clubs interested in Ben Chilwell, but the player wasn’t simply going to accept everything just because Chelsea wanted him to find a solution,” he said in his exclusive Daily Briefing.

“He only wanted to accept important proposals and he’s prepared to fight to get back into Maresca’s thoughts as a concrete option for the starting XI as soon as possible.

“It’s something we should all respect. There are contracts in football and sometimes players are not willing to leave.”

Chilwell digs his heels in

We love that attitude from Chilwell. Instead of throwing his toys out of the pram, he’s determined to prove Maresca and the club wrong in their assessment of his abilities. We completely back him to do it too – give him a chance and we’re sure he’ll grab it.