£50m Chelsea player didn’t leave this summer as the offers he received weren’t ‘important’ enough

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During the summer transfer window, Chelsea managed to offload most of the players that they did not want.

For example, Chelsea loaned Raheem Sterling to London rivals Arsenal, while Romelu Lukaku was finally sold to Napoli.

However, the Blues could not get rid of all of their unwanted players, with Ben Chilwell still at the club.

Despite Enzo Maresca not being too keen on him, Chilwell has been named in Chelsea’s Premier League squad, so the left-back could still end up featuring under the Italian this season.

• READ MORE: What people close to Ben Chilwell are insisting to Chelsea about his future

Ben Chilwell was reluctant to leave Chelsea

Even though Maresca warned Chilwell that he would not get minutes under him if he stayed at Chelsea, the 27-year-old was not in a hurry to leave Stamford Bridge.

According to transfer expert Fabrizio Romano, Chilwell did not receive any offers “important” enough for him to leave the Blues.

Speaking to CaughtOffside, Romano said: “This summer there were clubs interested in Ben Chilwell, but the player wasn’t simply going to accept everything just because Chelsea wanted him to find a solution.

“He only wanted to accept important proposals and he’s prepared to fight to get back into Maresca’s thoughts as a concrete option for the starting XI as soon as possible.”

Ben Chilwell should have left Chelsea

Renato Veiga’s arrival means that Chilwell is just not going to play under Maresca. When Marc Cucurella is unavailable, the 21-year-old is the next name on the list to start at left-back.

Levi Colwill can also play in that position and given how Maresca has spoken about Chilwell, you suspect that he is above his teammate in the left-back pecking order as well despite being a central defender.

Clearly, there was not a club that Chilwell wanted to join this summer out of the ones interested in him. And still having a contract with Chelsea, who signed the Englishman from Leicester City for £50m four years ago, he did not have to leave the Blues.

But by not doing so, he blew his chance of making England’s first squad post-Euro 2024 and will probably not play much football for what is left of this year.

With the Turkish transfer window closing a bit later than the English one, Chelsea reportedly offered Chilwell to three Turkish clubs this month. However, nothing came from it and trading there has now also stopped until 2025.