Levi Colwill

[JaneB]

Levi Colwill signs new Chelsea contract | News | Official Site | Chelsea Football Club (chelseafc.com)

[Ham]

11 minutes ago, JaneB said:

Levi Colwill signs new Chelsea contract | News | Official Site | Chelsea Football Club (chelseafc.com)

Where have you been @JaneB?

 

[Bert19]

Lovely Stuff.  Glad that we've got this one sorted. 

 

Jog On Brighton.  

[Mark Kelly]

[Gurj SS]

Hmm... A strange one, he's got talent and has flashes of good play but it seems to be more on the ball play than off the ball; more Luiz like than a JT like player. 

I like we have given a homegrown player a chance but I think Colwill wasn't all that great in pre-season. The good thing is we saw him in the PL last season for Brighton and he looked decent for a young player, but the bad thing is Cucurella looked good too; and to be fair Brighton have looked fine when playing without Caicedo in pre-season, the style at Brighton might be a key factor rather than the players. For example Gilmour put the kind of performance in against us that would have us thinking he'd be a better buy than Caicedo, even the free player they got, Dahmoud (spelling?), looked great in the pre-season tournament.

As for Colwill, he plays mentally a bit like Mings in that he just goes in without putting too much thought behind it, his passes are quite ambitious and they give possession away more than make real use of it. I'm surprised he signed the contract, he says Poch has reassured him but the new guy we signed, Disasi, might mean Colwill getting pushed to the side as the season goes on; especailly if we don't get off to a flying start. But all in all it beats having to spend a bucket load of money, and if things work out then all good and well, if it doesn't at least we have experienced backup and I'm sure we can move him on at the end of the season. The game in which he gave the penalty away was actually quite a poor game for him so I hope it's just a one off, if Poch can take the rashness out of his game and make him keep things more simple I think it'll vastly improve his defending as it always seems like his brain is ticking on what to do once he gets the ball or keeping the ball alive rather than just making sure we don't conceed.

[RDCW]

3 hours ago, Gurj SS said:

Hmm... A strange one, he's got talent and has flashes of good play but it seems to be more on the ball play than off the ball; more Luiz like than a JT like player. 

I like we have given a homegrown player a chance but I think Colwill wasn't all that great in pre-season. The good thing is we saw him in the PL last season for Brighton and he looked decent for a young player, but the bad thing is Cucurella looked good too; and to be fair Brighton have looked fine when playing without Caicedo in pre-season, the style at Brighton might be a key factor rather than the players. For example Gilmour put the kind of performance in against us that would have us thinking he'd be a better buy than Caicedo, even the free player they got, Dahmoud (spelling?), looked great in the pre-season tournament.

As for Colwill, he plays mentally a bit like Mings in that he just goes in without putting too much thought behind it, his passes are quite ambitious and they give possession away more than make real use of it. I'm surprised he signed the contract, he says Poch has reassured him but the new guy we signed, Disasi, might mean Colwill getting pushed to the side as the season goes on; especailly if we don't get off to a flying start. But all in all it beats having to spend a bucket load of money, and if things work out then all good and well, if it doesn't at least we have experienced backup and I'm sure we can move him on at the end of the season. The game in which he gave the penalty away was actually quite a poor game for him so I hope it's just a one off, if Poch can take the rashness out of his game and make him keep things more simple I think it'll vastly improve his defending as it always seems like his brain is ticking on what to do once he gets the ball or keeping the ball alive rather than just making sure we don't conceed.

It's OK mate, we too have a proper coach for the coming season.

[Gurj SS]

29 minutes ago, RDCW said:

It's OK mate, we too have a proper coach for the coming season.

Poch is good but I think he's also being hyped quite a bit by us fans. Yes he's better than Potter and Lamps but he's far off the likes of Tuchel, Conte, Jose and Carlo. He likes using young players but his Spurs team lacked game management; the experience he had in the PSG squad he won't have here, Spurs finished 3rd in a 2 horse race with Leicester for the title. While I'm happy we have a better coach than we have had recently, we're building a project with a manager who the last time built a project it fruited to nothing; many say Levy should have backed him in the transfer market but I'd say go check Poch's signings out because out of about 30 you'd only say about 3 were worth it. There's at least 25 signings where they were coming in for no reason because they gave nothing better than the player they were replacing.

I think the question mark over Colwill for me, is similar to the guy we will place our trust in to make him a better defender.

Edited August 2, 2023 by Gurj SS

[My Blood Is Blue]

Behind a paywall, so pasted it here for those that can't access it (link for those that can)

 

Levi Colwill: I want to win big things with this club and be a Chelsea legend one day

In the end, Levi Colwill was not asking for much to commit his future to Chelsea.

“I spoke to the gaffer (Mauricio Pochettino), asked him how he sees me and I got all the right answers,” he says, projecting a calm confidence throughout this interview at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Chicago on the final day of Chelsea’s pre-season tour of the United States.

“He gave me the confidence to come here and show who I am and so far I think I’ve had a decent pre-season. I just need to keep working and absorb as much as I can from the gaffer and also the players I’ve got around me because they’re such good players.”

Colwill signed a six-year contract with a club option for a further year while in the U.S. The preceding weeks had been dominated by speculation that, to turn down serious transfer interest from Liverpool and Brighton & Hove Albion, he was seeking guarantees of regular playing time at Chelsea this season — something that Pochettino famously does not provide.

Such suggestions were wide of the mark. Above all, Colwill simply wanted to avoid a repeat of last summer when, despite coaching a pre-season squad left thin at centre-back by the free-agent departures of Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen, previous head coach Thomas Tuchel barely even acknowledged his presence.

Tuchel and his staff were of the view that Colwill was effectively “one year away from being one year away” from being ready for first-team consideration, but no effort was made to make him feel a valued part of the long-term plan — and the head coach’s endorsement of attempts to sign Josko Gvardiol from RB Leipzig sent the Cobham graduate the opposite message.

Colwill makes no explicit reference to any of these events during the course of this interview, but there does feel something slightly pointed in his response when asked what style of management he responds to best. “I think as a manager, with me, a simple conversation goes a long way,” he adds. “I like to feel like I am a person.

“But at the same time, you can’t let me sleep and not work hard. You have got to be on my arse every day! I think if you keep pushing me every day and not let me sleep that’s how it works.”

Roberto De Zerbi provided Colwill with all of that and more during the course of a transformative loan spell at Brighton last season and the 20-year-old’s praise for the Italian is effusive.

“He’s always telling you how good a player you are, but when you step on that pitch you’re just like everyone else,” Colwill says of De Zerbi. “No matter how good you are, he’s there to make you work for that hour or two hours you are on the pitch. You’re there to work and learn. He wants the best. He’s a perfectionist and I think that’s why Brighton did so well last season.

“It was an amazing year. I learnt so much as a player, as a man. When I went there Graham Potter was the manager and I went pretty late into the start of the season and I wasn’t playing much. And even when De Zerbi came and I wasn’t playing much I had to adapt, keep my head and not just throw my toys out of the pram.

“It was tough for me every single day but I can’t say any more (good things about it). I’m so happy for everything I went through, the ups and downs — I’ve learnt so much as a person and a player and I’m just grateful for that opportunity.”

Tuchel was most likely correct in his assessment a year ago that Colwill was not ready to play a big first-team role at Chelsea; it took him until December 2022 to make serious inroads into Brighton’s starting XI and he only became a permanent fixture in De Zerbi’s team at the start of April after recovering from a muscle injury.

Such was his progress in the second half of the season, however, that England manager Gareth Southgate invited him to train with the senior national team squad in June at St George’s Park before he joined up with Lee Carsley’s under-21 side for their run to European Championship glory in Georgia. “It kind of shows nothing you do goes unnoticed,” he says.

With participation at Euro 2024 suddenly a realistic target, maintaining the momentum of Colwill’s club career became even more vital. Liverpool sensed an opportunity, encouraged by his contract situation, the flux at Stamford Bridge in the first year of Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital’s ownership and the presence of Benoit Badiashile. Brighton hoped to leverage Chelsea’s interest in Moises Caicedo to make his loan move a permanent switch.

Chelsea never wavered in their stance that a sale was out of the question. The view high up within the club is that in Colwill and Badiashile, they have two of the three best young left-footed centre-backs in world football (with Gvardiol being the other) and the Cobham graduate is rated as every bit as talented as the Croatia international with the ball at his feet.

There were frequent flashes of that talent in the U.S.; a little less baiting the opposition press with a foot on the ball than under De Zerbi, but plenty of sharp vertical passes out of defence rattled into the feet of Nicolas Jackson and Carney Chukwuemeka, as well as floated angled balls to spring the surging Ben Chilwell in behind on the left flank.

What is yet to be seen is how Colwill and Badiashile will co-exist. The France international’s hamstring injury has further opened the door for the Cobham graduate to begin the new Premier League season as a starter for Pochettino, while also leaving unresolved the question of what kind of dynamic will develop between them when he recovers.

“I played against him and France (at youth level),” Colwill says of Badiashile. “He’s a really good player. Whenever I’ve watched him he’s done really well. I remember playing a pass once and I saw him run across and I was like ‘Oh no’. I think he did well and won it. He’s a great player.

“I haven’t really met him yet because we were only at Cobham for a day before I flew (to the U.S.). But I’m excited to meet him and go from there. Hopefully we can build a friendship but we’re fighting for positions and I think that’s the best way.”

Badiashile also has experience playing as a right-sided centre-back at Monaco. Could they be partners rather than rivals? “Two right footers can play together,” Colwill insists. “Why can’t two left footers? I think people who say that are a bit clueless. I don’t think it matters what foot you are if you understand the position and if your awareness is good you can play where you want.”

On the evidence of pre-season, the man likeliest to partner Colwill in the heart of Chelsea’s defence against Liverpool at Stamford Bridge on Sunday is Thiago Silva, who continues to command awed reverence in Pochettino’s young squad despite being almost twice the age of several of his team-mates.

“He is a joke,” Colwill says of Silva. “Even training with him, playing next to him, he’s just so relaxed. He knows everything that is going on. You can’t put into words how good he is.

“I remember when I was younger I used to watch clips of him the day before a game. I don’t know why, I think it was when he was at PSG I just used to watch clips because he’s not the biggest, he’s not the fastest and that’s what I used to be like before I grew a lot.

“Mentally he’s steps above everyone. Now if 10-year-old Levi thought about playing with him it would be amazing. The best feeling in the world.”

Colwill is much more representative than Silva of a Chelsea squad that has, over the past three transfer windows, been utterly transformed at lightning speed and at vast expense into the youngest in the Premier League. It feels like a good opportunity to temper expectations, but it is not one that he is inclined to take.

“We’ve still got experienced players in our changing room,” Colwill insists. “We’ve still got Raz (Raheem Sterling), Chilly (Ben Chilwell), Reece (James), Thiago, Kepa (Arrizabalaga). We’ve got so many still and I think the young players, the energy we’ve got, we’ll go and do something really good this season.”

One positive is that Chelsea’s youthful makeover draws a natural line under a disastrous 2022-23. “It’s a different season with different players,” Colwill says. “I think there’s a different feeling in the changing room, so I think we can do anything we want.”

Another is that, having signed his new contract, there is no longer any doubt that Colwill will be part of what comes next. “I don’t think it was ever a doubt really,” he adds. “Chelsea has been my club since my ninth birthday when I signed. Obviously, I love this club a lot. I want to win big things with this club and I just had to speak to the gaffer, see what happened from there.

“I always wanted to be at Chelsea, be a Chelsea player and hopefully be a Chelsea legend one day.”

[Bert19]

Making all of the right noises. I'm happy we've got him signed up long term. 

 

Edited August 11, 2023 by Bert19