Billy Gilmour has opened up on the "frustrating" start to his Brighton career which has seen the Scotland star play just 13 minutes of first team football since his summer move from Chelsea.
Gilmour moved to the Seagulls to link up with manager Graham Potter but things took a turn within a week as Potter went the other way to replace Thomas Tuchel at Stamford Bridge. The former Rangers youth prospect has spent the weeks since predominately sitting on the bench as an unused substitute but was handed his chance to impress in the EFL Cup on Wednesday night and put in an eye-catching performance as Brighton knocked out English Premier League leaders Arsenal at the third round stage.
The 21-year old even registered an assist during the victory as he played a perfectly timed ball out to full-back Tariq Lampety who made it 3-1. Gilmour admitted after the match that he he enjoyed making a rare start and knows he needs to build on that 90 minutes if he is going to cement himself into new head coach Roberto De Zerbi's team.
He told MyAlbionTV: "I am enjoying it. I needed to be patient for my opportunity and I got my opportunity, played okay, so I need to build on that. But I am loving life here so far and hopefully that continues.
"Of course, you get frustrated sometimes but we are all together, we are a team, we are in it for the full season, so we all need to stick together, push, and see how high we can get up [the league table]."
National team boss Steve Clarke also detailed his message to Gilmour after he was included in his latest squad to face Turkey. Clarke insists everyone's careers can have hiccups and that he's told the box-to-box midfielder to work harder in order to challenge Moises Caicedo and Alexis MacAllister for a starting berth.
"When you are playing for top clubs with a lot of top players in the squad, rotation is normal," Clarke said. "John McGinn has suddenly found a wee spell out of the team but I'm sure he will get back in it.
"Scott McTominay is similar. He is not quite starting regularly for Manchester United but he is getting plenty of minutes off the bench. The only one you are looking at is young Billy Gilmour. I had a good chat with him and he knows he is going to have to work hard to get in the Brighton team.
"They are a good side and they have good players in midfield that are hopefully going to push Billy to another level. A lot can change between now and March. It's important for me to keep Billy involved because I see him as a key player moving forward and maybe I'll give him a few more minutes on the pitch than he's getting at the minute.
"Billy has done really well for us. At one stage it looked as though he was about to take off but his career has hit a little hiccup, everybody's career does. I remember I got dropped a few times in my career as well. It happens. Billy is still young. He has got time on his side."
READ NEXT
