Danny Drinkwater has criticised Chelsea for the way they handled a training-ground bust-up with an Aston Villa player, while he was on loan at Villa Park. He revealed he was hit with a heavy fine and told to stay away from the first-team building for what he thought was normal football behaviour. The ex-midfielder spoke about the incident during an interview with The Athletic’s David Ornstein.
Drinkwater, on loan from Chelsea, headbutted Villa teammate Jota after a 4-0 defeat at Leicester City, in which he did not feature, in March 2020. Villa boss Dean Smith confirmed there had been an internal issue, and it was reported Drinkwater would lose two weeks’ wages.
However, the sanctions from Chelsea seemed higher, as Drinkwater revealed:
“They fined me a massive amount of money for something that was pretty standard, really. You know, I understand there was more things than just that one that happened, but yeah, I got banned from the first-team building for something or nothing. It was just, yeah, it was just a circus. I mean, I say banned. They didn’t formally ban me, but I got removed from the first-team building after the incident at Villa.”
Drinkwater said the fine came days later, and his first-team ban came when he returned to Stamford Bridge for pre-season. He had told The Telegraph in 2020 that he headbutted Jota, describing it as a stupid thing to do.
Drinkwater Exile in the Lampard Era
After Lampard was appointed as Sarri’s successor, Drinkwater was deemed surplus to requirements, and Chelsea decided not to allocate the midfielder a squad number for 2020/21, with new signing Thiago Silva taking over his former number six shirt.
Drinkwater spent the remainder of the 2020-21 season on loan at Turkish side Kasimpasa, with Chelsea thought to be covering the bulk of his £100,000-a-week wages. He trained with the Under-23s for the first half of that season.
Lampard remarked at the time that personal difficulties had set the 30-year-old back and urged him to concentrate on playing games. Drinkwater subsequently joined Reading in August 2021, and his Chelsea contract expired in June 2022.