It’s fair to say that Roméo Lavia has not had the best of times since moving to Chelsea in 2023. At that moment in time, he was considered one of the rising stars in British football.
After coming through the ranks at Manchester City, a sole year at Southampton following a €22.26m move, everyone was raving about the Belgian talent.
A €62.1m move to Chelsea followed but he’s never really gotten going with the Blues, with just 48 appearances in three years to date.
Injuries stopped progress
That’s due to a horrendous injury record that’s seen him spend 286 days out injured in 2023/24 and miss 55 games, 226 days in 2024/25 and miss 39 games and then 119 days costing him 28 days in the 2025/26 season.
This year he appears to be on the right track, with five appearances in all competitions for the Blues already under his belt.
He’s then followed that with 16 minutes in Belgium’s 2-0 win over Italy and 85 in the 1-0 loss to France.
Those performances haven’t gone unnoticed. And the Chelsea midfielder now finds himself as the subject of praise from the Belgian media.
“A good footballer is someone who plays a simple game,” said Jan Ceulemans, via Voetbal Primeur.
“That’s Lavia. He wins the ball back and distributes it well – always looking forward. That is also down to the players ahead of him who make runs into the space.”
Defour goes one step further
Steven Defour went even further with his praise.
“He’s our defensive midfielder of the future, but he’s already delivering right now,” he added.
“It’s impressive. The big difference between Lavia and other players in that position – and I don’t mean to disparage Raskin here – is that Lavia’s first touch is an oriented control moving forward or a forward pass.”
Vossen is a little more cautious about the Chelsea man, perhaps given his recent injury history.
“Hmm, I’m more cautious about labels like ‘defensive midfielder of the future.’ He certainly played a good match. Absolutely. But to say he’s a guaranteed starter for years to come?” he concluded.
