The crazy changes at Chelsea over the last year have attracted plenty of attention – and are still ongoing – but few people have really had any insight on what it’s like for the players on the inside.
They’ve gone from worrying about the future of the club – and whether they will receive their wages that month – to finding every member of staff above and below them changed, along with an influx of new faces to the dressing room.
In his really interesting interview with the Guardian, Kai Havertz outlines a little of what it felt like, and explains it all with a perfect anecdote about his teammate’s sudden departure:
“As a player, you don’t notice the ownership change so much but we have a new team, new manager, new staff. A completely new changing room, so many personalities. You have to adapt, build a relationship. I played with Jorginho for two and a half years, he changed next to me, I loved being with him and then he calls me one evening and says: ‘I’m gone.’ I was like: ‘What the? How is this possible?’ This is how quick things change. It’s a human thing. You just have to accept it, it’s football.”
It’s strange for fans too – whether you liked Jorginho or not he was a steady presence in the team for years, starting almost every game under a series of managers, and then he’s gone, without much warning or build up.
The same may be true for Havertz one day.
