Chelsea have now absolutely ruled out 20-year-old player leaving Stamford Bridge this month

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Chelsea have ruled out allowing Alfie Gilchrist to leave the club in January.

That is according to this morning’s transfer speculation.

Alfie Gilchrist, who’s only 20, is the latest Chelsea academy graduate to be drafted into the first-team fold at Stamford Bridge.

The Blues youngster has become a regular in the main squad in the last month. He’s even made his first five senior appearances, too.

The Evening Standard has claimed on Wednesday morning that Chelsea won’t allow Gilchrist to exit this month.

It is explained that there’s been more and more clubs interested in taking the 20-year-old on loan since his very recent first-team breakthrough.

The report has explained that Gilchrist’s impressed everyone and the Blues want him as part of their squad amid this ongoing injury crisis.

Therefore, the English talent is unavailable for any loan deals.

Chelsea will keep Alfie Gilchrist

We’d have quite liked Gilchrist to experience regular first-team action in the second half of the season, so a loan move to a different club seemed like a no-brainer to us. Journalist Simon Phillips reported via Substack earlier this month that Millwall are interested in taking Gallagher on loan for the rest of the season.

However, this new decision does prove that the younger’s making quite the impact at Chelsea.

He’s a highly-rated centre-back from his time developing in the Blues academy, albeit he’s filled in adequately as right-back cover in the first team.

He’ll now continue his development alongside Chelsea’s senior players on a day-to-day basis. We’re hoping he keeps getting minutes because he doesn’t look out of place in Mauricio Pochettino’s side.

Our prediction is that he’ll still need a year out loan before he’s ready to push as a Chelsea starter, so expect a massive queue of clubs if he becomes available in the summer.

Despite the obvious temptation, we should resist putting too much pressure on Gilchrist by ignoring all the John Terry comparisons for now.