If there was a loan spell which absolutely can be defined as miserable, it would Saul Niguez’s loan move to Chelsea.
The midfielder spent the 2021/2022 season with the Blues on loan from Atletico Madrid but only managed 23 appearances that season and 1211 minutes in that campaign.
That was the beginning of something of a downward spiral for the Spaniard, who AS cover today and say is now coming out the other side of that long and dark tunnel.
The newspaper explain that Saul has been in excellent form for Atletico at the beginning of this season and they say he ‘already remembers the Saul from before Chelsea’.
That’s a player who was once a key player for Diego Simeone but found himself away from his best self after a spell playing out of position and that disastrous loan spell at Stamford Bridge.
Those two things ‘began to weigh on his head and legs’ and during his time at Chelsea he could ‘only feel it raining’ and nothing more. He was left with ‘water and nostalgia’ for the player he once was.
Last season he returned to Atleti but was ‘inconsequential and insipid’, a player nowhere near as good as the one who was once a star for his club.
This season, though, he has been reborn and appears to be getting back to his best, showing that a miserable time at Chelsea isn’t quite the definitive end it may seem it is. That’s something those currently struggling at the club might be interested to know.
