Chelsea star Trevoh Chalobah sends ‘ready’ message to Gareth Southgate

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Trevoh Chalobah appears to have committed his international future to England after describing playing for the Three Lions “a kid’s dream”. Moreover, he has declared himself “ready” for a World Cup call-up, with a number of England’s defensive players in a race against time to be ready to board the plane to Qatar next month.

A year ago, Chalobah, who was born in Freetown but moved to England as a two-year-old, described himself as “a citizen of Sierra Leone” when his native country qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations.

However, the former England under-21 international never registered for the tournament, since when he has established himself as a regular Chelsea player, starting the last four games under new manager Graham Potter.

That has given him the opportunity to learn close-up to veteran Brazil defender Thiago Silva how to play right across the back-three system both Potter and England manager Gareth Southgate seem to prefer.

“Obviously I’m learning from him a lot,” Chalobah said. “It’s good to be versatile as well – I can play in all three positions. So I just want to give myself the best chance when selection comes. Being versatile is important. And, yeah, if an England call-up comes, I’m ready for what’s ahead.

“It’s always a kid’s dream to be called up. But as I said, my focus is to give my all for the club and then see what happens. For me, the first thing was to play for Chelsea and get myself back in the team, and I’m doing that now. That’s the most important thing for me.

“There are a lot of games coming up and I want to play in every single game and we will see the team win. For me it’s just club football for me now. I never focus on anything else. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be but Chelsea is my main priority at the moment.”

It helps that the west London club are currently on a run of 533 minutes without conceding a goal following Wednesday’s goalless draw with Brentford. Chalobah says keeping that record intact is more than enough to focus the mind ahead of Sunday’s clash with Manchester United.

“From now, we are looking at it as a goal for us defenders and as a team,” the 23-year-old said. “If we keep doing the clean sheets, we know that the chances will be created and we will win more games. “The most important things for us right now are the clean sheets.”

Moreover Potter has warned players who were crowned European champions just 18 months ago that they are going to have to do it the hard way. “That’s the mentality that the manager brought in,” Chalobah said. “Suffering, playing teams like Brentford, there are going to be a lot of long balls.

“We are going to have to run for each other, work for each other. That’s the most important thing… suffering. That’s what teams like Brentford and a lot of the other smaller teams do,. And that’s what we need to bring into our team too.”

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