Former Chelsea midfielder Danny Drinkwater has now shared that sometimes he wasn’t even given the opportunity to train at times when he was at the club.
He told Jake Humphrey’s High Performance Podcast that he was forced to do fitness training alone during his time at Stamford Bridge, a situation he had never experienced before.
Today saw Drinkwater announce his retirement from professional football after being unable to find a club to go into this season with.
His time at Stamford Bridge did not go to plan. He joined after they won the league, where the aim was to form a strong partnership again with N’golo Kante.
This didn’t work out however, and he spent a lot of time not even being involved with the squad.
He has now claims that this resulted in his training sessions being completely changed, with him instead having to work on his fitness solo.
Drinkwater on Chelsea training
He said: “The season after I didn’t play a single minute and I would get stuck into London City life, I would be partying way more than I want to do and my focus wasn’t on football.
“I’d be going into training knowing I wasn’t playing and sometimes I wasn’t even training. It was so strange. Sometimes I would go to training and I’d be doing fitness on my own while the lads where training and I’d never been in this position in my life.
“It was so foreign to me this. I’m here to play football, I’m not an athletics runner. Get me on the pitch!”
While Drinkwater’s time at Chelsea was not a success, and it ultimately accelerated the end of his career, he will look back with pride at a positive career that involved a Premier League triumph with Leicester City.
