Emmanuel Petit has claimed summer signing Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall looks like the new Danny Drinkwater at Chelsea.
The Blues signed Dewsbury-Hall from Leicester in the summer for £30m as he followed Enzo Maresca from the King Power Stadium to Stamford Bridge.
The midfielder starred for the 44-year-old last season as he scored 12 goals and provided 14 assists as Leicester won the Championship title.
Petit thinks Dewsbury-Hall is the new Drinkwater
It’s a difficult adjustment for Dewsbury-Hall as he’s gone from playing every week and being the star man to just being another player and not featuring on a regular basis.
The 26-year-old has only played 44 minutes in the league this season and came on in stoppage time in Saturday’s win against Leicester, which very much felt like a token gesture from Maresca.
Despite his lack of minutes Maresca has insisted he’s very happy with Dewsbury-Hall and he’s featured more regularly in the cup competitions.
Whilst Dewsbury-Hall is a good player it’s hard to understand why Chelsea signed him given the competition for places they already have in middle of the park.
The Englishman is competing with the likes of Enzo Fernandez, Moises Caicedo and Romeo Lavia, who with the greatest of respect are better players than him.
Former Blue Petit believes Dewsbury-Hall looks like new Drinkwater and thinks he could suffer a similar fate to the ex-Chelsea man.
“Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall looks like the new Danny Drinkwater at Chelsea,” he told Casino Hawks as cited on X.com.
“He spent so much time on the bench and ended up going out on loan and that could well happen again with Dewsbury-Hall.”
Drinkwater joined Chelsea in 2017 having won the Premier League with the Foxes, but only made 23 appearances for the club and had multiple loan spells before leaving on a free transfer in 2022.
Petit has previously warned players to think twice about joining Chelsea and whilst it’s still early days for Dewsbury-Hall it very much feels like he could be going down a similar path.