Ben Chilwell opens up on exile at Chelsea under Enzo Maresca as Crystal Palace loanee reveals he trained alone for 'months'

Chilwell left Chelsea for Palace in the January transfer window after being deemed surplus to requirements by Maresca. The Italian told Chilwell to look for a new club after arriving at Stamford Bridge and he went on to become part of the club's infamous 'bomb squad' - a number of first-team players exiled from Maresca's senior squad at Chelsea.

Chilwell eventually sealed a move away to Palace in the winter transfer window and is hoping to play regularly with Oliver Glasner's side between now and the end of the season. The full-back has opened up on his last few months at Chelsea and reveals how tough he found it to be out of the first-team picture and training alone.

He told ITV Sport: "I was training by myself a lot of the days. You’re not involved in the matchday squads and you kind of just wait for the opportunity for when you’re gonna go somewhere. If you go somewhere in January and you’re miles off the pace, you’ve got to put the work in. The only person who is losing out is you.

"Training by yourself a lot for a number of months isn’t easy but I think the only thing that was keeping me going was I knew I was going to go somewhere, whether that was January or the end of the season….these past four or five months has given me the opportunity to to mentally and physically realign, refocus and reset to go again.

"There were a lot of circumstances at Chelsea that were not in my control, which I completely respect but the things I could control was how I came into training every day and how I trained, whether it was by myself or with the group. And that is a reflection on myself."

Chilwell and Crystal Palace are due back in action on Saturday in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup against Fulham at Craven Cottage.