Nathaniel Chalobah: ‘Fans love when we interact on social media, but players have to be careful’ Exclusive interview: Watford midfielder discusses England, learning from Maurizio Sarri and taking a course in football business management

When Nathaniel Chalobah first posed the question to his 260,000 Twitter followers he had no idea the breadth of responses he would receive.

While out for a year with a fractured kneecap, the Watford midfielder had been taking a course in football business management with the Sports Business Institute Barcelona and for his final project he was analysing if there had been a breakdown in engagement between footballers and fans. The thousands of words written with his girlfriend, an English graduate, sat looking over his shoulder and proof reading, might make you think twice about calling players boring or criticising them for seemingly distancing themselves from supporters.

“There’s not a straightforward answer to it,” Chalobah says as we chat in a small booth at Watford’s training ground. “A lot of fans enjoy it when players interact with them on social media. But players have to be careful about the things we say, the images we put out. We could try to have a joke with someone and it gets misinterpreted and before you know it you’re plastered on the back of The Sun newspaper, you’re getting a fine from the FA. It’s small margins really in terms of what you can put out there. If you go about it the right way, you can see that there’s a lot of interaction with players and fans.

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“You can look at it from the other side, as a player you haven’t had the best game and you open your social media and you’re getting abuse chucked at you left, right and centre. One fan’s not happy that you didn’t keep a clean sheet, or you didn’t score to help his bet for the weekend — just an example I’m putting out there. Us players have to have thick skins, as they say.

“It’s very easy for someone to say something to you and in the rush of the moment you type something back to them. But you putting that tweet out is a lot more costly than the tweet the other person sent you. Sometimes you have to take a step back and compose the tweet and if you don’t check it for longer than two or three minutes, it’s probably not worth putting out. That’s what somebody told me once and what I always think.”

Chalobah cast his net wider and explored the relationship in real life: at the stadiums and in public. He points out that Watford are a family-orientated club, and the players are regularly involved in signing sessions, fan meets and Q&As.

“I was fascinated by it. There are so many factors, in terms of players having outside commitments, some of them have kids and responsibilities. Especially now with the role the media play, you see players sometimes get painted in a bad light, it’s hard for players to stop and give fans the time. From a fans’ point of view it’s always been: we pay to watch you guys every week, you guys can’t even stop for a photo sometimes. There’s a bit of miscommunication there, or on the grounds that it’s not really been made clear why certain players act the way they do, which I can understand sometimes.”

‘I thought to myself, don’t even think twice’

Chalobah would encourage more players to spend a few less hours a week watching Netflix or Amazon Prime and playing PlayStation and a little more studying something. He learnt about TV rights, e-commerce, customer relations, shirt sales, season ticket sales, how stadiums are run, business analytics and digital marketing.

His face is incredibly animated as he talks, almost as though his expressions are saying as much as his words. He is polite and articulate and he wheels the photographer’s equipment bag outside to one of the misty pitches dotted around Watford’s London Colney training ground for photographs after this interview, which may not sound like much but is the first time I have ever seen a player offer.

He explains that the reason he took the course is that he needed some stimulation during rehab, now that he was not so tired in the afternoons and because he has always enjoyed learning and studying. He talks at length about topics and trends and you get the sense he could do so all day.

When the discussion turns to the growing movement of young English players seeking first-team games abroad and the success of Jadon Sancho at Borussia Dortmund, he relates to his own season on loan at Napoli before he made the permanent move to Watford from Chelsea.

“I think someone like Jadon Sancho at the minute is at the forefront of everyone’s attention because of his football but also the fact at such a young age he decided to go out, play in a different country, they speak a different language, he has to eat different foods, experience a different culture,” he says. “It just shows how important it is for players to get this experience. Not only on a footballing level, but on a level that they can actually become men.

“It shows maturity that you can leave home and go somewhere else and hold your own. In my situation, I was so excited when it came up. I thought to myself, don’t even think twice, here’s a chance for me. I’d been playing in the Championship a few years and it was a chance to try something different.”

Chalobah turned up on day one, with Italian manager Maurizio Sarri, now at Chelsea, in charge and a group of players, which included Marek Hamsik and Jorginho, who all spoke in Italian. He knew basic words and phrases — ciao, grazie, come va — from an app on his phone, but could not join in properly.

“I didn’t really have many conversations with people initially,” he says. “Straight away, I thought this is going to be tough, because I can’t really interact with the boys as much as a I want to. I like talking, so if I can’t have a conversation with someone then this could be a very long loan spell.

“I took it upon myself to get a teacher as quickly as I could. The boys were helpful, if I made a mistake about something they corrected me. After about three months I could hold a conversation and after six I could speak the language. I’d learnt the Italian language, I adapted to the culture quickly.”

‘I tried to learn from Maurizio Sarri’

Chalobah loves parmigiana — fried sliced aubergine layered with cheese and tomato and baked — and the pizzas and their pasta, he says, is “unreal”. He found the Neapolitans extremely friendly and felt like one of them by the end.

“They have a very relaxed approach to everything. There’s no rush. It was like OK, so I’m trying to do everything 100mph, but really and truly only because I’m from England. We’re driving, we’re trying to get everywhere rapidly. There’s just no urgency at all in Italy.

“I thought I can take this, if I just relax a bit more it’s probably better for me. I took that on board.”

He adds: “On a footballing level I learnt things I’d never learnt before, things I hadn’t be taught whilst I was in England. Tactically, I was with Maurizio Sarri, he’s very intelligent, he knows how he wants his teams to play and sets you out how he wants you to play.

“For me, he was very hands-on: you press at this time, you slide over here at this time, when the player’s coming to you, you go this time. At the time of my loans in England I hadn’t had that sort of work tactically with a manager.

“He said OK you have the physical aspect, he said you have a little of the technical aspect, but if you get the tactical side of it you can be a great player. I just tried to learn as much as I could from him.”

Chalobah believes going abroad to live and work forces people off their smartphones and to interact with their surroundings. “Predominantly most of the time you’re on your phone,” he says. “But when you go abroad you have to try and do a bit of sightseeing, experience the culture and visit places and try out new things. Now it’s a lot easier, definitely, for players to go out and experience these things.”

‘It’s something I’ve always dreamt about’

Some spectators may not have noticed Chalobah coming on for England in the final minute of their Nations League match against Spain last month, but hearing the 23-year-old relay the experience is an examples of what is really meant by the pride of wearing the national team shirt.

Chalobah remembers it as though it is a scene in a film, one he has replayed again and again in his head since. “To make my debut this year was probably my biggest achievement as a player,” he says. “It’s something I’ve always dreamt about. It was a short amount of time but through my head I get replays of it all the time, I’m so happy.

“For about a minute when the gaffer [Gareth Southgate] was talking to me before I went on the pitch I actually don’t remember anything. Just at that moment in time before entering the pitch, I was thinking, ‘Oh my God I’m about to make my debut here, I’m about to play for England, is this actually happening to me?’

“As soon as I walked on the pitch I felt such a relief. All those years I’d been through and now I’ve made my debut, I’ve got that cap, now I’ve just got to get my head down and work and get more caps. I think he’s given me a little bit of a taste to encourage me to get some more.”

It felt for a long time as though turning up for England duty, especially during the international breaks with duller friendlies or straightforward qualifiers, was a chore; that the players would rather be back at their clubs plotting Premier League campaigns and Champions League pillages.

England manager Southgate has tried hard to address that and make reporting to St George’s Park for national team duty enjoyable again.

I put it to Chalobah that Southgate might’ve been showing his age a little when he described the atmosphere around hotels and training during England camps as like a “youth club”, but he replies: “The youth club is a great shout! We all meet up and just want to have fun — that’s how it should be. You don’t want to meet up on international breaks and think: ‘Ugh I don’t want to be here.’

“I reckon some of the boys look forward to meeting up with the England squad more than they do at their clubs. That’s just based on the environment the gaffer’s got everyone working at. It’s so relaxed.

“You don’t have to do anything different. You don’t have to be someone different. You don’t have to act differently. All the new boys coming in feel like they’ve been there for years. That’s evident on the pitch at the minute. The togetherness is out of this world. You can see all the players are focused and want to do well for the country and themselves. They want fans to love England again. It’s an environment you want to be in. Everything with England has changed now.

“England are doing great and the connection that everyone’s got with the England team is second-to-none. I think that was the goal and the idea and the target and I’m chuffed it’s all working out at the minute.”

Perhaps Chalobah and Southgate can compare notes about that engagement with supporters, next time they are together.