Michy Batshuayi has spoken out about his loan move from Chelsea to Borussia Dortmund, claiming that the Blues would have “preferred” him to stay at Stamford Bridge in January.
Despite being short of attacking options, Chelsea eventually agreed to send him to the Bundesliga side for the second half of the season.
“I needed game time to find myself. There were a lot of possibilities,” Batshuayi admitted to Onze Mondial.
“On the one hand, I was happy to leave because I knew that I was going to benefit from more playing time. On the other, I had just put in some very good performances with Chelsea and the club would have preferred that I stayed.”
Batshuayi’s World Cup dream close to being realised
The 24-year-old is clearly not a favourite of Blues manager Antonio Conte and was rarely handed an opportunity to start in the early stages of the campaign, going on to make just several appearances from the bench.
Batshuayi needed a fresh challenge if he wished to make the Belgium squad that is set to play in the 2018 World Cup and his form for Dortmund so far certainly makes it likely that he will be part of the squad that will travel to Russia.
Since moving to Germany, the forward has rediscovered his confidence and has scored eight goals from 12 games for the club in all competitions.
Are Batshuayi’s comments fair?
Chelsea were clearly struggling in front of goal during the January transfer window, with Alvaro Morata out of form.
Their desperation to add firepower to their attack was shown by their purchase of Olivier Giroud, a man who is past his peak and was struggling to achieve regular first-team football with Arsenal during the early part of the season.
In addition to this, Batshuayi also scored two goals for Chelsea against Newcastle United just prior to his departure, so the Blues board may have indeed wished that he would have stayed at the club. Surely, having the option to use the striker would have given Conte’s men a better chance of finishing in the top four and qualifying for next year’s Champions League.
