Trevoh Chalobah’s long interview with Football.London has some really nice parts, and we particularly loved this story about his relationship with Antonio Rudiger.
“Toni’s from Sierra Leone, where I’m also from, and when he first came my brother [Nathaniel, who won the Premier League with Chelsea in 2017] told him to look after me. I used to go round his house, we’d chill, and every time I came over for training, he’d get hold of me and help me,” Chalobah explained in his long interview talking through his development.
“He was the only one that season who believed in me and told me to keep going. The next year I went on loan and ended up going on loan three times, and after every season he kept telling me, ‘Keep going, keep going. I know you’re good enough to play for this football club’.
“He’ll always tell me how it is and what I need to do. He’ll speak to me like a grown adult, not a little boy. For me, that’s what’s helped – it’s kept me on my toes. You know how aggressive he is on the pitch, and that’s how I want to be on the pitch as well.”
This kind of thing just shows why it would be such a blow to lose Rudiger this summer. Not only is he a great player with a great personality, he’s also been at the club long enough to build really strong relationships with other players, and even a new player as good as him would need years to get to that same stage.
It’s interesting to see that the Germany star is teaching Chalobah his style on the pitch too – we wonder if he will see the defender going on mazy runs and firing off long range shots like his mentor soon?
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