The Blues signed Lavia from Southampton during the summer for an initial £53m (Sky Sports).

He is yet to play a game for his new side because of injury, but Mauricio Pochettino expects him to be fit soon.

Don Hutchison suggests Romeo Lavia was a panic buy

Hutchison thinks Chelsea panic bought Lavia and has also been quite critical of his team-mate Mykhailo Mudryk.

On their recent transfer business he said: “I was chatting to a mate of mine, a Liverpool fan, and it was like you look back at the transfer window and you go Liverpool nearly bought [Moises] Caicedo, but Chelsea’s plan was, ‘Oh, we’ll buy him.’ Then Liverpool said, ‘All right, then, we’ll buy Lavia’, and then Chelsea went, ‘Oh, we’ll buy him!’

“And they were just panic buying everywhere and you look at it like… Mudryk, who I really, really want to love, but it’s almost like he’s too fast. He needs to slow down.”

Was Romeo Lavia a panic buy?

Honestly, looking at the bigger picture, you cannot really say that. Lavia had actually been on Chelsea’s radar for a while.

According to the reliable Fabrizio Romano, they tried to sign him last year just after his move from Manchester City to Southampton. So this was not a player who had just come to Chelsea’s attention at the last minute.

It was also important for the club to bring in a couple of midfielders. In the 2023 January and summer transfer windows, they lost Jorginho, N’Golo Kante, Mason Mount, Mateo Kovacic and Ruben Loftus-Cheek.

It would be wise, then, to reserve judgement on Lavia, especially with the Belgium international yet to actually kick a ball in a blue shirt under Pochettino.