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Nathaniel Chalobah says he had to be "brave" to leave Chelsea this summer after realising he needed to make a move away from Stamford Bridge to be happy. The 22-year-old has earned a senior call-up into the England squad for the forthcoming World Cup qualifiers against Malta and Slovakia after making an impressive to start to his Watford career following his arrival from the Premier League champions. Having had six loan spells away from Chelsea during his time at the club, Chalobah made just 15 senior appearances for Antonio Conte's team in all competitions last season. And the Sierra Leone-born midfielder says that, after failing to establish himself in the first team, he had to be bold enough to leave the club he supported as a boy. "It takes a lot [to leave a club like Chelsea] and I think you have to really look deep into yourself and see what makes you happy," Chalobah said. "For me, I was at a top club and people were saying to me, 'You are at Chelsea, you should stay at Chelsea, a big club.' "But for me, that was not what the problem was. The problem was that I wanted to play. After getting a taste of it last year, I needed to go out and try and do better things for myself. "So yes, I think you really have to be brave, and sometimes decisions can be hard to make, especially when it is your future, and you have to make those decisions yourself." Chalobah was regularly billed as one of the brightest young stars to emerge from Chelsea's academy and he says it was easy to believe that he would eventually break into the first team. "It's a tough place Chelsea, a top club, and I think that sometimes you can get a bit carried away with being there," Chalobah said. "You are on the brink, on the brink, almost there, and it's very hard when you have got established players who come in and they have got the experience already, whereas in my situation or a youngsters' situation, if you don't have the experience it is a lot harder to get into the team. "So it was a matter of me judging the situation and seeing what the best options were for myself. I had been on a few loans back and forth. I was never really settled and for me it was more a case of trying to find somewhere to be really settled and try to find somewhere to call home. "I was finding it difficult to do that at Chelsea, even though I was there for the whole season, and played a few games. So for me it was a hard decision, not easy. I had to put a lot of things into consideration, but now I can say that it was a good decision."
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