Ciarán Murphy

I remember that Chelsea had a transfer ban and it sort of looked at that point as though a lot of Chelsea academy players were going to make it into the first team.

Obviously, you've got guys like Mason Mount or Tammy Abraham who are a bit older than you.

but Lampard was sort of putting those guys in.

And I think at that stage, at the beginning of the season, you would have been nearly, coming up to your 18th birthday.

Did you feel at that stage, this is kind of, you know, whatever about the transfer ban for the club, that's not bad news for me necessarily.

There may have been a sense in Chelsea Academy, a few of us are going to make it into the first team here.

You played in the game for, it was Chelsea against Luton in the Cup and it was March 22 and you came on as a sub and I think it was 2-1 down.

You were losing 2-1.

I mean, I don't know.

Are you one of these players who remembers every game that they played in?

Some do, some don't.

Yeah, that was also the same day that Roman Abramovich, before the game, announced that he was going to be leaving Chelsea, selling the club.

Do you remember what the atmosphere was like around the club at that pretty crazy moment?

Yeah, I remember Thomas Tuchel at the time having to answer a lot of questions about like the Russia-Ukraine war and eventually he was like, guys, like this really isn't my area, like I'm a football coach.

But you, I mean, he was obviously the manager at the time, it was a very successful time for the club that had just won the World Club Cup as well as, you know, obviously the Champions League with Tuchel.

What do you remember about working with him?

It's interesting, just when you're saying that, it reminds me of Troy Parrott did an interview a couple of months ago with a colleague of ours, Miguel Delaney, and he talked about... Well, he was obviously at Tottenham when he was about the same age you were when you were at Hull, and he was going on loan and kind of things like this, and talking about how frustrating he found it, but he said...

I thought I knew everything and I realize now that I didn't know anything or I knew nothing.

You know what I mean?

He's looking back from the perspective of only sort of four years later.