'It was weird' - Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall makes admission about his 'dark times' at Chelsea
In this story:
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall has opened up about his struggles for playing time at Chelsea, which eventually led to his transfer to Everton last summer.
The 27-year-old joined Chelsea from Leicester City to reunite with Enzo Maresca at Stamford Bridge in the summer of 2024.
At the time, joining Chelsea's stacked midfield, which included high-profile players such as Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo, Dewsbury-Hall was predominantly used as a rotation player.
He made just 13 Premier League appearances for Chelsea, only two of which were as a starter, and most of his appearances came in the Conference League, in which he made 13 appearances.
However, the Everton star did not think he would play such a limited role at the start.
"I had a lot of options but signed for Chelsea, genuinely thinking I was gonna play," Dewsbury-Hall told The Daily Mail about his move to Stamford Bridge.
"I believed I could. I know I could. And then football is football. Things happen.
"Obviously, the competition was high. Rival midfielders were £100m players (Caicedo and Fernandez).
"It was a strange dynamic at times. It was quite fortunate for the club that the manager could field two very strong teams.
"But it was weird - it almost felt like no matter how well I played in midweek, I would not play at the weekend and that was the only thing that didn't sit well with me.
"In football, it's important, if you're playing well, that you get the chance to play. I'm a very emotional guy. If I'm not playing, I feel useless, basically. I feel like I haven't got a purpose because that's my life.
"So yeah, there were dark times where I thought, 'I don't care about money or anything else. I just wanna play football, so why aren’t I?'"
The midfielder also admitted that despite his good relationship with Maresca, which allowed him to have a lot of conversations with the former Blues head coach, he could not get reassurances of more minutes on the pitch.
In the end, he decided to leave Chelsea in pursuit of regular football.
"I could easily have stayed at Chelsea for much longer, but I wanted to go to a club with a project and be a main player. Everton felt perfect," he admitted.
Gerry Crisandy is a freelance writer who has covered Chelsea for many years. His work has been published on The Chelsea Chronicle and Pride of London. He grew up idolising Michael Ballack and is a firm believer in expected goals.