I feel sorry for him because since he moved, he's had to put up with comments like "he's happy to sit on the bench to pick up his pay packet" and "he went for the money, so it serves him right", but when you look his season, it's hard to ignore the fact that injuries decimated it (although many have tried).
- He joined in January, having not played a game of football since May 2017.
- He didn't really have any sort of pre-season at Everton as he had a groin injury then suffered a Grade 3 tear to his hamstring.
- When he came to Chelsea, we arranged a closed door fixture to assess his fitness, then he played in three successive games, suffered a reoccurrence of his hamstring injury and was out for another two months
- When he returned, it was virtually the start of April, so he was playing catch-up with fitness and form with six/seven games of the season to go.
I read somewhere that out of 62 games he could have played in 2017/18, his injury spells (punctuated by both returns: one in a friendly and one in an U23 game) meant he missed 49 of them. A lot of people have been keen to bracket him in with Bakayoko and Drinkwater, but I'd give him another season before passing judgement, and hopefully with a proper pre-season it all goes better for him.