Romeo Lavia: 'My body let me down ... this is my first proper season at Chelsea' (2024)

Romeo Lavia’s answer is instant. He has been asked to set out how his dream second season at Chelsea would look.

“The dream,” he says, “It is to not miss any games. That’s it.”

It is a response that underlines the physical and psychological ordeal he has endured since joining Chelsea from Southampton in a deal worth £53million ($66.9m) plus £5m in add-ons last summer.

He arrived with a minor injury from the previous season, but this was compounded by an ankle blow suffered in training at Chelsea and later a serious thigh problem. His first season at Stamford Bridge amounted to only 32 minutes of competitive action, against Crystal Palace on December 27.

Amid the frenzy of Chelsea’s recent transfer windows, Lavia may have been forgotten among many neutrals who struggle to keep up with who is registered at the club.

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He has now had a promising pre-season, starting every match of the club’s pre-season tour of the United States and playing a 90-minute game for the first time in 15 months in the 4-2 defeat against Manchester City.

Lavia describes this, therefore, as his “first proper season” at Chelsea.

“Last season was frustrating because it was hard,” Lavia says. “You’re young and you want to play. You’re getting to know your body as well, which is sometimes unfair because you feel like you’re doing everything right to get back but then nature sometimes decides in a different way. It was just about understanding that and growing as a person.

“It was frustrating but it was more in the head, and now it has helped me. Injuries can happen. I’d say that it was unlucky and I tried to catch up every time. My body let me down a couple of times because I felt like I was doing everything right. I wouldn’t blame anything.”

Amid the pain, observing games from a box at Stamford Bridge or on television, Lavia had plenty of time to reflect. Last summer’s window was dramatic as Chelsea first beat Liverpool to the signing of Moises Caicedo in a British record transfer and then doubled down on their midfield options by beating the same club to sign Lavia.

“You’ve never had my version,” Lavia says. “It’s all about what you read in the media. I had to read a couple as well and sometimes you knew more than me apparently (he laughs). Listen, when I heard about Chelsea and it was from a long time ago before everything started, it was a no-brainer. Some stuff I was reading, I’m not going to say it was fake but my decision was Chelsea.”

It was always going to be Chelsea?

“The interest from Liverpool was there but, in my head, I wanted to play for Chelsea.”

Chelsea first bid around £50million for Lavia in September 2022, despite the Belgian, then aged 18, having only signed for Southampton from Manchester City for a quarter of the price that summer. In between, he had scored for Southampton in a 2-1 victory over Chelsea.

From the outside, as Chelsea toiled under owners Clearlake Capital and Todd Boehly, it has not always seemed immediately clear why players such as Lavia see joining Chelsea as a “no-brainer”. The club has failed to qualify for the Champions League for two consecutive seasons.

“If you look at the teams, Chelsea is the one that is growing,” he insists. “Even though the results are not going like the other teams, you can see the bigger picture. When I saw a group of young and talented players that at their previous clubs had been the best players, it can only go well. Now I’m here, I realise it’s true.”

He adds: “We are building something amazing. Everyone at the club can feel it, not just the players. Manchester City and all the teams that have been successful, they needed years to do that. I’m not saying we need the same years but it is not going to take two weeks. The confidence is there and then it’s about not looking at the other teams, but focusing on ourselves.”

Lavia consulted his Belgian compatriot and former Chelsea star Eden Hazard while deciding whether to join the club. In an announcement video on social media, Lavia called Hazard “the big boss”.

“He’s a great guy, like a big brother,” Lavia says. “Whenever I need advice, I go to him.” That included during last season when the injury was getting him down — a feeling Hazard knows all too well. “It’s the same for a lot of experienced players I speak to, asking them if they have been in the same situation and how they have dealt with it.”

This weekend, Chelsea begin their Premier League campaign at home against champions Manchester City, the team Lavia joined from Belgian club Anderlecht at the age of 16.

In the youth setup, he played under the new Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca. The Italian was the manager of City’s under-21s. Lavia says he feels “comfortable” in Maresca’s system but says the coach has slightly modified how he wants his teams to play since their time together at City.

At Anderlecht, Lavia had played two age groups up and he caught Pep Guardiola’s eye in June 2019 when the Catalan coach attended Kevin De Bruyne’s KDB Cup for teenagers in Belgium. Lavia leans back and smiles as he recalls how his mother would drive him two hours to training.

City signed Lavia the following year. He made only two appearances for their first team.

How did he find training with Guardiola?

“Special,” he says. “It is a massive experience because you get to know about the details in football that make a difference. From the outside, you probably don’t see it. You probably see it as players passing the ball around but there’s more than that. It is the details that make the difference.”

He credits Guardiola with helping him see the game differently. “He was a midfielder as well. He helped me with putting my body shape in the side position to get the ball and it makes the whole difference. I could pick up from most of the players. I trained with Rodri, Fernandinho, Kevin De Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan, Bernardo Silva. These players could play in midfield but in different positions and you say, ‘Wow, that’s the level’. They’re always working.”

Was it difficult to walk out on City and join Southampton, aged 18? “No, it was not a hard decision simply because I felt I was ready to play. I had a good conversation with the manager (Guardiola) and he said, ‘You’re young and you need to develop’. He was honest. It was just about looking for the best opportunities to get to that stage as fast as possible.”

At Southampton, Lavia individually excelled but the team were relegated, finishing bottom of the Premier League in the 2022-23 season, which represents Lavia’s only substantial top-flight experience.

“It taught me a lot. We weren’t winning, so it was a lot to take. But it’s also the roughness of the Premier League. You play a good game on the Saturday but then the next Saturday you’ve got another one. By Monday, that one needs to be gone. That’s something I need to understand. I’m not a striker but if you score a hat-trick, you’re happy about it the whole week but you have to score in the next one. It’s the same in my position. You cannot be complacent and think that you’re there yet because, in the next game, it could catch up on you.

“I had a few players that helped me a lot because they could see the qualities in training but they knew how hard the Premier League is and it’s not just about to make one pass, or one dribble. It’s about being consistent for 90 minutes and then week after week after week. They helped me a lot with my understanding. The Premier League is rough.”

He says the adversity sets him up to succeed at Chelsea. “Southampton was a good challenge but I learned as a person because you get to face hard challenges as a team and you need to overcome them. It’s also because I’m someone that is confident and I like to be a voice in the changing rooms.

“It was about learning how to deal with the situation and try to lead in a certain way. Now coming to Chelsea, that experience can help me in a different way because now it’s about winning.”

(Top photo: Chelsea FC)

Adam Crafton covers football for The Athletic. He previously wrote for the Daily Mail. In 2018, he was named the Young Sports Writer of the Year by the Sports' Journalist Association. His debut book,"From Guernica to Guardiola", charting the influence of Spaniards in English football, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2018. He is based in London.