Less than two months after making the toughest decision of his career so far, the call has already been vindicated for Nathaniel Chalobah.
Midfielder Chalobah, 22, had to be “brave” to leave the comforts of a big club, take control of his career and quit Chelsea for Watford to secure regular football.
Yet his choice has already paid off with a first senior England call-up and three Premier League starts, compared to just one for the Blues in all his time there, coming Chalobah’s way since moving to Vicarage Road last month.
Asked if his presence in Gareth Southgate’s senior Three Lions squad for the Malta and Slovakia World Cup qualifiers over the next week justified his decision to leave Stamford Bridge, he said:
“Yeah I guess so, that was the aim really, to leave and try and get game time somewhere else, and I am just very pleased and happy that things are going well.
“I would definitely say it was the toughest decision I’ve had to make.”
There are lessons to be learned from Chalobah’s story for both the big clubs and England’s young hopefuls.
He had six loan spells while at Chelsea and his only Premier League start for the Londoners came against Watford, in the game immediately after Antonio Conte’s men had won the league, before his patience finally ran out.
“There are a lot of good, young English players,” he said. “The average age for the Premier League did go up. I think it was 23 to be able to play at some clubs.
“Personally [I think] it is very difficult being young, it is a lot of pressure and clubs have to be brave to play young players and it’s the only way to gain experience.”
Unable to get enough of it at Chelsea, there was ultimately only one option for the Sierra Leone-born anchor man when he snubbed a new Blues deal to join Watford last month.
“I had been at Chelsea my whole life. I had been there 12 years and Chelsea was all I knew, the club that I loved and supported as well so for me it was a very hard decision.
“It takes a lot. You have to really look deep into yourself and see what makes you happy.
“I was at a top club and people were saying to me ‘you’re at Chelsea, you should stay at Chelsea, a big club’, but for me that was not what the problem was.
“The problem was that I wanted to play, after getting a taste of it last year, I needed to go out and try and do better things for myself.
“You really have to be brave, and sometimes decisions can be hard to make, especially when it is your future, and you have to make those decisions yourself, but you have got people around you who can help you and for me I had my family and friends and my agent (Fitz Hall) who was a footballer himself, and he played a big part in it.”