Former Chelsea assistant coach Ray Wilkins has said that Chelsea ignored the words of club legend John Terry to keep Nathaniel Chalobah.
The 22-year-old was sold to Watford this summer for £6 million after not being part of Antonio Conte’s first team plans.
He has since gone on to play in all three of the Hornets opening Premier League games and was rewarded for his efforts with a call up to the England national team.
Blues boss Conte was seemingly not a fan of Chalobah as he made just ten appearances in the Premier League last season before offloading him to Watford.
Wilkins has now stated his belief that the defending Premier League champions made a mistake by selling Chalobah and believes that there is not much between him and Tiemoue Bakayoko, who arrived at the club this summer for £40 million.
He also added that Terry had wanted Chalobah to remain with the club and said, “I can’t see the difference between the £40m that we paid for Bakayoko, I don’t see that £34m difference, I really can’t.
“Nathaniel is an up and coming young man who shows a lot of promise. He’s already got himself in the England squad for his performances this season.
“I spoke with JT (Terry) a long while ago, towards the back end of a season, and he said to me: ‘Ray, just throw Nathaniel in, he’s been different class in training’
“It’s the players that see them day in, day out that give these guys those plaudits. I was saddened to see Nathaniel go. I think we are weakened, players have to get used to the Premier League whereby we had players who were used to winning it, not necessarily being in it but used to winning it.
“We have to start from a little bit square one again but in saying that, the squad is very presently placed because they do have some wonderful footballers.”
