Former Chelsea skipper Gary Cahill joined Chelsea in January 2012, and in just his first season at the club, he went on to win the Premier League.
Cahill spent seven years at the club, winning lots of titles, including two Premier League titles and went on to become Chelsea captain after John Terry left the club.
However, Cahill’s final season as a Blue was very painful for him after falling out of favour under former boss Maurizio Sarri, as Sarri chose not to play the captain for most part of the season. Cahill has looked back at the season and admitted that it’s difficult to have respect for Sarri for what he did to him.
“We went to the 2018 World Cup, got to the semi-finals, so I missed pre-season, which I think was massive looking back now. He was very much into his tactics, probably too much, and I missed all of that,” Cahill told the Daily Mail.
“I was on the back foot. To be brutally honest, halfway through the season, the relationship was gone. I don’t think that was ever going to be recovered.
“It’s difficult to have respect for some of the things he did. But I have a lot of respect for the club, and for the players. As a big figure then, as captain, to go about things totally the wrong way, which I easily could have done, it’s not the way to do it.
“Was that easy? No. Was that one of the mentally toughest things to deal with? Especially because it went on for so long? One hundred per cent.
“The maddest thing is when you don’t play for whatever reason – if you’re out of form, or if you had a few bad games and someone is playing better than you – I know in my head that if you give me four or five games in a row, I’ll be back. I’ll take my chance.
“You know that in yourself because you’ve got that burning desire inside of you. “Give me five games and you won’t get this shirt back. That’s an arrogance you have to have. The problem is he never gave me that.”