Few players have had their name mentioned this summer as much as Levi Colwill. The Chelsea defender has enjoyed a breakout season in the Premier League with Brighton after overcoming a difficult start and has been rewarded with plenty of plaudits.
With impressive performances comes speculation, and in a solid vindication of Colwill's abilities, Brighton appear keen to land the 20-year-old defender and have yet to be dissuaded. Chelsea on the other hand see the Cobham product as not for sale.
Last term saw Colwill acclimitise on the south coast and deal with a muscle injury as he made 24 appearances to continue his progress following a successful loan to Huddersfield in 2021/22. It was little surprise when 12 months ago that Colwill was named in Chelsea's travelling party for their trip to the USA. This time, it will be an expectation.
Injury disrupted his time with Thomas Tuchel and ultimately, the German coach was not convinced to keep him at the club as his loan to Brighton was confirmed in early August. The youngster will have competition to beat this summer in the form of Thiago Silva, Wesley Fofana, Benoit Badiashile, Trevoh Chalobah and Kalidou Koulibaly.
First, he is set to represent England at the under-21 European Championships but his preparations for that have been disrupted. Colwill has been involved with senior training all week and made the trip to Malta. He does not appear set to be involved in the matchday squad but Gareth Southgate has not ruled out the possibility that he may also be with the group for North Macedonia.
The England boss said: "We wanted to have him with us for the week. We lost Lewis Dunk earlier in the week so we were a defender short. He will stay with us certainly until we get back to Manchester and we are able to assess where we are within this group and who is available for the next game.
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"But the intention is that he is with the under-21s and we want to get him back into that because that’s an important tournament for his development as well. But he’s done really well, he’s settled in very, very well with the group. We know he’s a good player already, although he’s young. We’re impressed with his mentality, have been all season, and his mentality."
England's campaign in Georgia gets underway on June 22nd against Czech Republic and if they advance to the final of the competition they will not finish until July 8th. Chelsea's first pre-season match gets underway on July 19th against Wrexham, leaving little time to be involved in early preparations with Mauricio Pochettino.
Noni Madueke and Mykhailo Mudryk are also set to be involved in the tournament, as is Ian Maatsen with Netherlands. As Chelsea form Pochettino's squad, the Blues boss may be made to wait for first team stars with the likes of Christian Pulisic and Hakim Ziyech expected to depart this summer. The competition's group stage ends before the close of June.
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