(Video): Forgotten £8.5m transfer makes full Championship debut and shows off elite physical skill | OneFootball

Chelsea haven’t played for two weeks and don’t play again until next Thursday. It’s a painfully deep international break.

How deep? Caleb Wiley highlights compilation deep, that’s how deep.

The young full back, signed a year ago from the MLS for around £8.5m, was initially loaned to Strasboug for this season. But injuries made minutes hard to come by, and in January he switched to play at Watford, aiming to get more minutes and to free up one of our international loan slots.

Sadly things haven’t gone much better for him there either – he’s only just made his first start for the Hornets this weekend as they look on Plymouth in the Championship.

To be fair, he looked really solid in the game, as his highlights show. Physically he’s great, and even in a pretty demanding league in on that front he looked well up for it.

You can see the full back’s performance in the clip embedded here:

[Footage from SkyBet Championship]

Wiley can write off this year and go again in 25-26

Caleb Wiley in action for the USA. (Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images)

While his year in Europe has been a struggle, Wiley played 85 games for Atlanta before that, so he’s got plenty of experience. We can write this year off as one of adaptation to a new environment, and if he can stay injury free next year he should be in line for another Championship loan where he can hopefully play more regularly.

Playing for our first team looks a distant prospect (unless he gets a shot in the Club World Cup) but if we can get him playing in the second tier every week we should be able to make an easy profit given what we paid.

It’s not romantic, but if it helps us pay for a new goalkeeper or striker, so be it…