Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel has expressed his disappointment over losing talented midfielder Billy Gilmour on permanent basis after he forced a sale this summer window. While the Blues wanted him to send on loan for his further development, Gilmour rather chose a permanent move away. He joined Brighton on a four-year deal as Chelsea received a fee of £9 million for their midfielder.
Gilmour rose through the ranks of Chelsea’s Cobham academy which has produced brilliant talents in recent years. The 21-year-old joined an elite list of players such as Mason Mount, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Tammy Abraham, Armando Broja and many more who have made it big coming through the Cobham academy.
We had high hopes- Thomas Tuchel on Gilmour forcing his sale
Billy Gilmour was one of the eight academy players who were handed their debuts by former manager Frank Lampard, the most by any manager in the history of the club. The central-midfielder made 17 appearances under Lampard, only for Thomas Tuchel to arrive and change the scenario.
The academy graduate featured only five times during the rest of the season after Tuchel took over the Chelsea job in January 2021. He was then sent on loan to Norwich for the 21/22 season, where he managed 28 games assisting twice. The loan spell at Norwich wasn’t deemed as a successful one for Gilmour and the West Londoners once again wanted to send him out on a loan to another side this summer.
However, Gilmour opposed it and ‘forced’ the club to facilitate his permanent exit. Thomas Tuchel has now come out lashing at the youngster for not keeping patience for his chance to arrive to compete for a place in the Chelsea first-team. The German has explained he felt the midfielder needed regular minutes which he could have only achieved through another loan spell.
Tuchel said:
“We had high hopes and he played for us in the first half-a-year when I was at Chelsea, played some important matches for us and looked for a new challenge that did not go so well for him with Norwich. We expected more, he expected more so it was like, without pointing a finger, but it is difficult also for him and for us to not succeed, to not play at Norwich, to be relegated and then suddenly be a central midfielder for Chelsea and competing for top four and for every title. There’s a huge step in between so we were looking.
“The ideal solution would have been maybe that he goes again on loan as the concurrence is huge for us in central midfield and we felt like he is not the age where he can live again with five or seven or eight matches during a whole season to fulfil his own potential so ideally it would have been another loan. Billy did not want to go on loan, it was a no-go for him so in the end we agreed to a sale.”
Nonetheless, the Blues brought in Juventus midfielder Denis Zakaria on a one-year loan deal with option to buy paying a loan fee of £2.7 million. Chelsea were the biggest spenders this summer across Europe as they shelled out a total of £275 million on acquisitions of Raheem Sterling, Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang, Wesley Fofana, Kalidou Koulibaly, Marc Cucrella, Denis Zakaria, Carney Chukwuemeka and Gabriel Slonina.