Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall completed his move from Leicester City to Chelsea yesterday, reuniting with head coach Enzo Maresca who made the same move just last month. Unlike Maresca, who would spend just the one season at Leicester, Dewsbury-Hall had been at the club his entire footballing life (save for a couple loan moves), so it’s certainly a massive change for the 25-year-old to leave his boyhood club and step out into the great big unknown.
But as he explained in his first interview, getting to work with Maresca again was a key reason for making this decision, which will likely Kanté make or Drinkwater break his career.
“I have made it pretty public about what I think of the new head coach. He is fantastic. He is top. He completely changed the way Leicester wanted to play last season and we saw it worked. I personally fell in love with the way he wanted to play and I know a lot of the other lads did as well.
“I am very confident coming here that he is going to implement his style and that the lads are going to buy into it and are going to enjoy it. With more time working with it, it will look more natural and when that happens, it is going to be really good for the football club.”
Coming into last season, Dewsbury-Hall had 12 career goals to his name: 5 for Leicester (3 of those in the Premier League), 4 for Blackpool in the third division, and 3 for Luton Town in the second. By the end of the season, he had exactly doubled that number, to 24.
That offensive explosion — albeit in the second division — was a specific intention on the part of player and coach, and one that they will surely be looking to replicate at Chelsea.
“I am somebody who likes to attack, drive at defenders and make things happen with goals and assists. I will also give 100 per cent for the team defensively and I am someone who overall can contribute in every aspect of the game.
“I think scoring more goals has been down to a combination of everything. I spoke Enzo Maresca about adding more goals to my game and thought of methods to do it and I have managed to do that. It was nice to get into double figures. That is something I will try to do again this year because I am an attacking player trying to make a difference in the final third of the pitch.”
We’ve had the pleasure to watch some of the greatest box-to-box midfielders in football history roam the green grass of Stamford Bridge, so if Dewsbury-Hall comes even close to the likes of Frank Lampard, Michael Essien, Michael Ballack, and so on, he will have done very, very well.
His arrival might herald a few, already probable exits in the near future at that position, but in theory, he could indeed be a good fit with the likes of Moisés Caicedo, Enzo Fernández, or Roméo Lavia ... or even Conor Gallagher, should he end up staying.
He’s got the right attitude anyway.
“Last season was a positive year for me and I’m coming into this season feeling like a new player, full of confidence, full of motivation to get going and I don’t see a better fit than coming to Chelsea and testing myself against some top players and playing with top players. I am in a great space and I am really looking forward to getting going.”
“My hopes for the season, first and foremost, is to win some silverware. That is an aim for this club and we are in plenty of competitions this season where we can try to do that. So that is priority number one.
“I want to play as many games as I can and try to help the team as much as possible. That is imperative to me. I want to enjoy the moment and enjoy the occasion. There are going to be a lot of games this season and hopefully there will be a lot of ups.”
“Obviously, I know the head coach and the way he wants to play. It suits me as a player. The squad is full of talent and has a lot of potential so I know that if it is nurtured right, then we can be really dangerous.”
-Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall; source: Chelsea FC
Let’s get dangerous!
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25516322/2159711400.jpg "Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall confident Enzo Maresca’s tactics will work at Chelsea, too (1)")
