Chelsea fans were pained to see young midfielder Billy Gilmour leave the club to join Brighton on transfer deadline day.

Brighton, who had also signed another Chelsea prospect Tariq Lamptey over a year ago, have added Gilmour to their list.

Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel has explained his reasons for the sale.

According to Tuchel, Gilmour didn’t want to leave the club on another loan deal, as he felt the young midfielder needed another loan spell after a disastrous outing with Norwich City last term.

Tuchel has said that the club expected more from Gilmour.

Tuchel said: “We had high hopes and he played for us in the first half-a-year when I was at Chelsea, played some important matches for us and looked for a new challenge that did not go so well for him with Norwich.

“We expected more, he expected more so it was like, without pointing a finger, but it is difficult also for him and for us to not succeed, to not play at Norwich, to be relegated and then suddenly be a central midfielder for Chelsea and competing for top four and for every title.

“There’s a huge step in between so we were looking. The ideal solution would have been maybe that he goes again on loan as the concurrence is huge for us in central midfield and we felt like he is not the age where he can live again with five or seven or eight matches during a whole season to fulfil his own potential so ideally it would have been another loan.

“Billy did not want to go on loan, it was a no-go for him so in the end we agreed to a sale.”