Jamal Musiala looks like being the latest elite young talent to leave Chelsea and enjoy a superb career away from Stamford Bridge.
The 19-year-old has been in dazzling form for Bayern Munich this season, scoring 12 goals and providing six assists for his teammates in 21 games in all competitions so far.
Musiala was in Chelsea’s academy for eight years between 2011 and 2019, but, writing in his exclusive CaughtOffside column, Fabrizio Romano explained why the young midfielder decided to leave the Blues for a move to the Bundesliga early in his career.
As with players like Jadon Sancho and Jude Bellingham, it seems Musiala felt that joining Bayern would be the best thing for his development as he’d seen that German teams were more willing to give playing time to young players.
“It’s not just Musiala, also players like Sancho, Bellingham decided to move to the Bundesliga as they are immediately playing top talents when they are almost ready,” Romano said.
“This makes the difference and that’s why Musiala decided to leave Chelsea for Bayern in 2019. He’s now doing brilliantly for them, so it looks like he made the right choice.”
Romano added that there doesn’t currently seem to be any prospect of Premier League clubs bringing Musiala back to England.
“At the moment there is nothing as he’s under contract until 2026 and he’s not planning to leave,” Romano added.
This will be difficult for Chelsea fans to swallow, as their club seems to keep on getting unlucky with players leaving them as youngsters before going on to become world class elsewhere.
Mohamed Salah and Kevin De Bruyne were notable examples in the last decade, while more recently we’ve also seen Tammy Abraham and Fikayo Tomori performing superbly in Serie A.
Musiala is the latest, and Chelsea fans must be wishing they’d been able to keep hold of this immensely talented teenager.