When Chelsea splashed £30m on Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall last summer, eyebrows went up. Not just a few, either—pretty much everyone in the football world had something to say. Was he worth it? Did Chelsea really need another midfielder? Was this just another case of the Blues throwing money at a problem they didn’t fully understand? Nine months on, with the 2024-25 season rolling into its late stages, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall is starting to answer those questions—not with words, but with the kind of dogged determination that’s defined his whole career. This isn’t a flashy tale of a wonderkid who breezed into stardom. It’s a story of a lad from Shepshed, a small town in Leicestershire, who’s had to scratch and claw for every chance he’s ever got. And now, at Stamford Bridge, he’s hell-bent on proving people wrong once again.
🏴 Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall (Leicester City, 25)
📊 vs Championship Midfielders, 2023/24
🥇 Key passes — 1st
🥇 Expected assists — 1st
🥇 Offensive duels — 1st
🥇 Touches in box — 1st
🥇 Accelerations — 1st
🥇 Headed goals — 1st
🥈 Passes to penalty area — 2nd
🥈 Shot assists — 2nd… pic.twitter.com/BE8iX8LR5g
— DataMB (@DataMB_) July 1, 2024
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall – The Story
Let’s rewind a bit. Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall wasn’t a name that rolled off the tongue for most Premier League fans until a couple of years ago. Growing up, he was just another kid kicking a ball around, dreaming of the big time. Leicester City’s academy scooped him up early, but it wasn’t some golden ticket to the top.
Preseason was his first chance to make a mark. Two weeks of slogging it out under Maresca’s watchful eye, then off to the USA for Chelsea’s summer tour. The early signs were promising. He wasn’t dazzling with 30-yard screamers or stepovers that sent defenders tumbling—he doesn’t play like that. Instead, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall brought something subtler: control. In a midfield that’s often been accused of being too frantic, too disjointed, he looked composed.
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall – The Benchwarmer for Chelsea
The season proper, though, was always going to be the real test. Chelsea’s midfield is a crowded house—Fernández and Caicedo are locked-in starters when fit, and the likes of Roméo Lavia and Carney Chukwuemeka are itching for minutes. Where does Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall fit? Maresca’s got a job on his hands juggling that lot, but Dewsbury-Hall hasn’t backed down. By late March 2025, he’s started to carve out a role. Not every game—let’s not kid ourselves, he’s not dislodging the big names yet—but enough to show he’s not just along for the ride. A goal against Shamrock Rovers in the Conference League, a tidy assist in a Premier League cameo, a handful of starts where he’s covered every blade of grass. It’s not the stuff of Ballon d’Or campaigns, but it’s progress.
Determination for move
He’s said he’s “so determined and motivated” to make this work, and you believe him because his whole career backs it up. Every step—Leicester’s youth ranks, those loan spells, the Championship grind—has been about proving he belongs. Now, at Chelsea, it’s the same story, just on a bigger stage.
The doubters haven’t gone away, of course. A quick scroll through social media after a quiet game, and you’ll see it: “£30m for this?” “Doesn’t do enough.” “Why’d we sign him?” It stings, no doubt. But Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall has heard it all before. Back when he was breaking through at Leicester, there were plenty who thought he’d never cut it in the Premier League. When he moved to Chelsea, the noise got louder—too slow, too average, not elite enough. Yet here he is, still standing, still pushing. Every time someone writes him off, he seems to dig a little deeper.
Take that Shamrock Rovers game in December. It wasn’t a blockbuster fixture—Chelsea were expected to steamroll them, and they did. But Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall’s goal that night wasn’t just a tap-in. He started the move, drifted into space, and finished with a striker.
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