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davieG

Ben Chilwell: A possible star in the making

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Another one

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-6472163/Ben-Chilwell-playing-Dele-Alli-training-countryside-England-heroics.html

 

In one way Ben Chilwell is right when he contemplates his emergence to England importance, puffs his cheeks and says: ‘It has all happened so fast.’

He watched the summer’s World Cup at home and only got his first call-up in September because of injuries. But after impressing in the victories over Spain and Croatia, where he set up Harry Kane’s winner with a brilliant free-kick, the left-back role is suddenly his to lose.

In another sense though, this has been a long time in the making. At 15, Chilwell thought he was getting cut from Leicester’s academy, but survived, and resolved to practise alone in his local park to better his technique and go running through the Northamptonshire countryside to improve his fitness.

In the summers he would play five-a-side football in Milton Keynes against another talented resident of the town, a certain Dele Alli, and eventually became the player everybody at Leicester whispered excitedly about.

Chilwell admits dislodging Christian Fuchs took longer than he would have liked, even accepting the Austrian’s title medal, but now, at 21, he has played every minute of this Premier League campaign and is aiming to become a permanent fixture for his country too.

‘The short-term aim is just to keep playing well for Leicester and hopefully I can be involved for England in March and then the summer in the Nations League,’ Chilwell says.

‘The long-term aim is to be the first-choice left-back for 10 years to come and be one of the best left-backs that England has ever had. That’s in the back of my head.’

If those words strike as confident, it must be said Chilwell is simply speaking as he thinks, without a hint of arrogance. He has ambition and belief but is equally frank when touching on his occasional failings last season.

He says: ‘I had games where I thought: “What was I doing there?” I watched them back a few days after and it’s frustrating because you know that’s not the kind of stuff you do.

‘The Everton game was the main one for me. I made a mistake which cost us the first goal, maybe it was even my mistake for the second goal as well.’

Open talking has been a theme of England’s resurgence under Gareth Southgate, and Chilwell is an excellent fit for a dynamic national team.

The origins of his honesty trace back to those days when his dad Wayne would taxi him to and from Leicester training, the 50 or so miles of M1 giving chance for much conversation. Wayne is a builder from New Zealand who met Chilwell’s mum Sally while travelling 25 years ago, deciding to relocate to England but keeping a Kiwi mentality for telling it straight.

‘At Under-15s we trained Tuesdays and Thursdays after school, and Thursdays was when we would find out the squad for Saturday,’ says Chilwell. ‘I remember every Thursday getting back in the car and my dad would turn round to me, “Are you in the squad this week?” “Nope.” And we would argue the whole way home.

‘My dad was very hard on me. “You’re being a bit lazy. You’re probably more bothered about hanging out with your mates.” He got into me.

‘That’s when I started going to the park practising, going for runs, on my own. Sometimes a few hours. I was quite lucky, because I live near the countryside so there was endless places I could go running and it wasn’t boring.’

Anyone who has watched Chilwell play will recognise those bursts down the pitch that seem like they could go on forever. It is funny to find out though that he began life as a midfielder, first at Rushden and Diamonds before the club went bust, and then Leicester when he went on trial age 12.

He says: ‘Because someone got injured the manager said, “Ben you’re going to play the second half at left-back.” It was my first game for the club, I didn’t know any of the boys, so I just remember running up and down the line. It ended up suiting me.’

Those small-sided games against a contemporary in Milton Keynes by the name of Dele suited him too.

‘Probably until two years ago we were going to Power League every summer, texting, “Shall we go in today?”

‘It was a good standard. As well as Dele there was Brendan Galloway, George Williams, Giorgio Rasulo.

‘At the time it was just fun but looking back it probably did help, because you’re playing with good quality players. It was pretty competitive, there were always tackles flying about.’

It has therefore been a neat turn of events bringing Chilwell and Dele back together with England, a set-up that the Leicester player says is ‘very easy’ to enter.

‘The training is intense, the matches are intense, the meetings are intense, but when you are not doing all of that you feel like you are away with your mates, watching a film, chilling, whatever.

‘Dele was in charge of movie night, he chose Four Lions. I didn’t particularly like it.’

Chilwell enjoyed the reaction to his breakthrough performance in Seville, however. ‘The changing room was buzzing, but it was when I met up with my mum and dad the next day, they said to me, “I don’t think you understand how big a win that was.”’

Chilwell has natural sporting talent, good enough to be in Northants cricket academy as an all-rounder. But he needed a loan at Huddersfield to confirm his football pedigree.

Aged 18 he was David Wagner’s first signing at the club in 2015 and it proved a mutually beneficial relationship: Chilwell got Championship matches in his legs; Huddersfield proved they could look after Premier League players, securing more loans and winning promotion.

‘I learnt a lot in the two months I was there,’ Chilwell says. ‘Every game mattered, not like Under-21s football. Coming off the pitch, after a loss, there were arguments in the dressing room.

‘And David really wanted us to play football. I remember one game against Bolton, on Boxing Day, we were just booting it. We were 1-0 up but he came into the dressing room and spent the whole half-time screaming at us!’

An injury to Jeff Schlupp meant Leicester recalled Chilwell that January, transporting him into the midst of an extraordinary title challenge. ‘To be honest, I was actually quite disappointed,’ he admits. ‘I know we were near the top of the league but I was enjoying it at Huddersfield so much and wanted to play a whole season.

‘But it was nice to be around the atmosphere of a team winning the Premier League at those odds.’

It was at this stage that Arsenal and Liverpool attempted to sign Chilwell. Leicester resisted, even if Fuchs remained first choice. Chilwell had to wait until Boxing Day 2016 to make the first of seven Premier League starts that season.

‘It was difficult, mentally, to keep motivated,’ he admits. ‘It took longer than I would have liked to be playing week in week out but that’s credit to Fuchsie of how well he was playing.’

Chilwell gave a statement of his vast potential when coming off the bench in the Champions League quarter-final to deeply trouble Atletico Madrid, almost scoring, and Claude Puel now trusts him totally.

This summer Chilwell pushed himself. Back to the park, taking a friend too for days of ‘horrible running’ timed by his dad. He returned fitter than ever. ‘That obviously gave me the confidence going into the season,’ he says.

Nothing though could have prepared him for the night of October 27, and it is clear the effects of the disaster that claimed the life of Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha and four others are still being felt. In January, Chilwell mourned the loss of Cyrille Regis, who had become a close mentor, so for all the highs it has been a tough year too.

Chilwell is solemnity defined as he reflects. ‘I’d left the stadium, Harry Maguire rang me and said: “Have you heard?” Then it got put in the group chat. The Monday was horrible. It was the coldest, hardest thing – no one was talking.

‘I’m sure other football clubs would say they don’t even know who their owners are. But he was so involved, not just financially, but if we weren’t playing well he’d come in and say: “You need to be doing this.” He was so passionate.’

Chilwell tells a story related to him last month by Harry Winks, that Heung-min Son had been in a London restaurant and seen Vichai. When it came to paying the bill Son was told the Leicester owner had already paid for the whole restaurant.

A beautifully moving tribute video was made for the Burnley home game but shown to the players a few days before. ‘The day of the game would have been too emotionally upsetting,’ Chilwell says. ‘It was just silence for a few minutes after. A lot of the boys are still gathering themselves – it’s such a shock.

‘You see Top [Vichai’s son, Aiyawatt] come into the changing room before the game and for a split-second you think: “Where’s Vichai?” It’s just really weird.’

So, where do Leicester go from here? ‘Up, 100 per cent,’ Chilwell insists without hesitation. ‘We’re more together now than we’ve ever been. Top is so behind us. We know what Vichai’s dreams were for the club, to be consistently one of the best in the country, so it’s up to us to make that happen.’

Edited by brucey
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Interesting parallels with Vardy (the intensive off-season training leading to a step-change in performance) and also his comment about wanting to stay out on loan for the season at Huddersfield, given the on-going debate (on here at least) about bringing e.g. Barnes back.

 

 

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16 hours ago, Goober said:

Great interview. Credit to Claude for sticking with him when many wouldn’t have. And full credit to Chillers for working his bollocks off and becoming a brilliant full back

Oh dear man Chillers? Do people actually call him that? Sends chillers up my spine how cringey it is!

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I really can see it being Spurs who come in and bid for him, he'd fit with the other young England players like Winks and Alli and would be an improvement on their LB's but we and he can say no. They might offer Rose in part exchange but no thanks. Hope he has a ruck with a few of them today to put him off them!

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41 minutes ago, UniFox21 said:

And this sums up the problem with the premier league. 

 

A player has a great start to the season with a mid-table team or lower. All of the big teams suddenly linked. 

 

The big teams almost can't bare for other teams to have good players and hoards them. 

And then the media slam teams for not challenging the top 6

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