Arsenal hero Theo Walcott believes Romeo Lavia could become one of those Chelsea players that will just be gone, and you won t hear much about .
Walcott played with Lavia at Southampton for one year after he was signed from Manchester City for £14million.
The 20-year-old was superb for the Saints in 2022/23 but could not help them avoid relegation from the Premier League.
Following their relegation to the Championship, Southampton cashed in on Lavia, selling him to for a reported £53m.
Liverpool tried and failed to sign the Belgian international, who opted to join the Blues bat-s**t project instead of playing under Jurgen Klopp.
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Lavia has featured in all six of Chelsea s pre-season matches under new head coach Enzo Maresca, playing the full 90 minutes against his former club Man City, who the Blues face in the Premier League on Sunday.
His availability this summer will be seen as a huge boost to the Blues after he missed the entire 23/24 campaign, excluding 33 minutes against Crystal Palace last December.
Despite impressing and featuring heavily in pre-season, Lavia s former Southampton team-mate Walcott is concerned.
The ex-Arsenal forward can see the Belgian falling out of favour under Maresca after Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall was signed to compete alongside £100m+ stars Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo.
Talented Chelsea midfielder in danger of becoming an outcast Walcott
He s a very talented footballer, Walcott said. He trained his heart out, probably trained too much. He had a serious injury and obviously missed a whole year.
There were talks of him going to Chelsea or Liverpool, and I thought, right, as a player, this is perfect. Liverpool would be the perfect club for right now because the midfield was rebuilding at that particular time.
Players can, of course, make their choice, but as a career path, he s stagnated a little bit.
The new manager [Maresca] has come in, he s brought in Dewsbury-Hall, you ve got Conor Gallagher similar players to some extent.
With the number of players they are signing, good players just won t get a chance. They just won t be seen at Chelsea.
