Chelsea activate option to recall Trevoh Chalobah from Crystal Palace — reports

Today at 12:18 PM

Welcome back, Trev

After some confusing messaging and conflicting rumors earlier this month, Chelsea appear to have made the decision to recall Trevoh Chalobah from Crystal Palace, as first reported by The Athletic. Chalobah has not traveled with Palace to Leicester for their match tonight.

For some reason, Chelsea initially briefed against having even the option in Chalobah's loan contract, but it became pretty clear pretty quickly that we do in fact have the option — and that we might even use it to help alleviate the concerns caused by the injuries to Wesley Fofana and Benoit Badiashile. (Fofana's probably out for the season; Badiashile should be back in a few weeks.) As I see things, Trev should slot in next to Levi Colwill in the A-lineup with immediate effect.

As per The Telegraph, Chalobah has been told that he's expected "to challenge for a first-team place for the remainder of the season" ... but still only for the remainder of the season. "The expectation on both sides remains that Chalobah will leave Chelsea permanently at the end of the season, but he and the club realise that they can help each other in the meantime."

Chalobah was among the first-team "bomb squad" exiles in the summer (like Ben Chilwell and Raheem Sterling and others) before securing his loan move to Palace, where he established himself as a first-team regular. Hopefully we're not recalling him just to stick it to Oliver Glasner.