Levi Colwill delays Chelsea’s future talks as Brighton loan gets back on track

The 20-year-old is on loan at Brighton and excelled on his return after a two-month injury layoff in Wednesday’s 1-0 win over Crystal Palace.

Brighton hold Colwill in high esteem and tried to sign him last summer during talks over the deal that saw Chelsea sign Marc Cucurella for £62million.

After defeating Brighton Palace to sit six points clear of fourth-placed Tottenham with two games in hand, Colwill insisted he was not thinking about his future after this season.

“I haven’t thought about it to be honest, I work hard every day and that’s all I focus on,” he said. “When I start planning for the future, maybe things don’t go to plan here and then everything changes.

“That’s my main priority at the moment, working hard with my teammates. I loved every minute here. I’ve learned so much even though I haven’t played, now I get minutes after coming back from injury so I can’t complain.

Chelsea are understood to be keen on keeping Colwill after paying more for Cucurella to ensure they didn’t lose the talented youngster permanently last summer.

The Cobham graduate has two years left on his contract in the summer but the Blues have since signed Benoit Badiashile, who has a similar profile and age to Colwill.

Brighton are a real contender to qualify for Europe this season and they are also in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup.

“We keep pushing and we don’t want to set a goal because we can do anything,” said Colwill. “We believe in this and work hard every day to achieve these goals.

“We now have Grimsby on Sunday, it’s still a big game and so we have to think about coming here and winning while we work hard for that.”

Colwill competed for a call-up for England last year. He admits his England debut is a goal for him, although he’s proud to play for Under-21s.

“That’s the end goal,” he said. “It would be a great honor to play for England one day. But it’s also an honor to play for the U21s, as always. You can never take that away from you and it will be two big games.

“I really enjoy meeting them. New faces, meeting new people and with the same end goal of winning games and I like it so much.”