Malang Sarr laments ‘lost time’ at Chelsea | OneFootball

Malang Sarr’s (25) anonymous stint at Chelsea came to an end this summer, however, there are no regrets for the defender, who now plies his trade at RC Lens, as he told L’Équipe.

The Frenchman joined on a free transfer from formative club OGC Nice in the summer of 2020 but failed to ever break through, spending periods on loan at Porto and AS Monaco. He returned from a challenging loan spell with the Principality club in the summer of 2023. When he returned to Chelsea, there was a new manager in place and a whole raft of new players. As a result, brutally snubbed by now-former Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino, Sarr didn’t play a single minute for the Blues last season.

At the end of the campaign, a mutual contract termination was agreed meaning that, four years after moving to Stamford Bridge, he left Chelsea having made just 21 appearances. Regrets? Not at all, insists Sarr.

“A victim of football business is a strong term but I’ve paid for it. If this banishment (at Chelsea) is linked to my performance or because I wasn’t a good person, I should have worked on myself but I experienced all of that despite myself,” said Sarr, who added that he had “no regrets”, despite admitting that he “lost time” at Chelsea. He is trying to now make up for that lost time at Lens.

GFFN | Luke Entwistle