Thomas Tuchel has explained why Chelsea decided to allow Billy Gilmour to leave the club on a permanent deal as he joined Brighton on deadline day.
The Scotland international has completed a move to the Seagulls for a fee in the region of £10million, ending his five-year stay at Stamford Bridge after joining from Rangers in 2017. Gilmour made his first-team debut in August 2019, before bursting onto the scene later that season as he won Man of the Match in a 2-0 win over Liverpool.
He was widely praised for his performance in that game and in a 4-0 success against Everton four days later with Gilmour flourishing at the heart of Chelsea's midfield. However, the 21-year-old struggled for form after the pause in football due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and made just a further four first-team appearances that season.
Under Tuchel, Gilmour featured periodically and was loaned out to Norwich City for the 2021/22 campaign. He played 28 times for the Canaries as they were relegated straight back to the Championship.
After completing his switch to Brighton, Tuchel told the Chelsea website : "We had high hopes. He played for us in the first half-a-year when I was at Chelsea and he played some important matches for us, and he looked for a new challenge, which did not go so well for him with Norwich.
"We expected more and he expected more so without pointing a finger, it is difficult for him and also for us to not play at Norwich, to be relegated, and then suddenly be a central midfielder for Chelsea, competing for top four and for every title. It is a huge step.
"So we were looking. The ideal solution would have been maybe that he goes again on loan as the concurrence is huge for us in central midfield and we thought he's not the age anymore where he can live again with five, six, seven or eight matches during the whole season, and fulfil his own potential.
"So ideally it would have been another loan but Billy did not want to go on loan.
"It was a no-go for him and so in the end we agreed to a sale."
Meanwhile, Chelsea were the highest spenders of the transfer window and brought in eight new players, including Marc Cucurella, Raheem Sterling and Wesley Fofana. The Blues' final signing came late on deadline day with Denis Zakaria arriving on loan from Juventus and Tuchel has admitted Zakaria may be used at wing-back.
He said: "This was an option that came in very late. It was related not to the numbers that we should have in midfield but the numbers that we actually have.
"We have Kova, who had knee problems over the last weeks. He'll hopefully make it without surgery and will be available right now but he was a little bit on the edge of surgery.
"N’Golo Kante is struggling and suddenly Ruben Loftus-Cheek had a hamstring injury that could have cost us some games. Fortunately he is available this weekend but this was the situation so this [the recruitment of Zakaria] was more or less a last-minute option.
"He gives us a lot of options because he has speed, height and physicality to bring to this group. He can play in the back-three and I think he can play even in a back-four. He can play both positions in the midfield and maybe even wing-back because he's fast enough and has the volume."
