Trevoh Chalobah has mourned the transfer of long-time friend Mason Mount after his move to Manchester United.
In a tweet last night after the news was announced, the 23-year-old simply wrote 'My boy' with a crying emoji and a broken heart symbol.
The Red Devils finally agreed a £60million move for Mount yesterday and he is set to have his medical next week to kickstart his five-year deal.
And the dispirited tone of his friend, Chalobah, is understandable given the long-term relationship the two have shared since childhood.
The pair spent around a decade in the Blues' academy together, working their way up through the years and winning trophies with each other for club and country.
Rising through the ranks at the elite Cobham Training Centre in Surrey, Mount and Chalobah built their reputations alongside each other, though the former made his Chelsea bow in 2019, a couple of years before the latter.
In 2012, the youngsters were ballboys near each other in the Champions League semi-final match against Barcelona.
That night, a Didier Drogba goal was enough to give Chelsea a lead before the away leg, and Roberto Di Matteo's side went on to win the competition against Bayern Munich.
At U18s level, they won the FA Youth Cup twice, playing alongside team-mates such as Tammy Abraham and Fikayo Tomori as they beat Manchester City, who had Phil Foden in their ranks.
Mount grabbed a goal in the first leg of the 2016 final, while Chalobah opened the scoring in the second leg of the 2017 final as they romped to a 6-2 aggregate victory.
That 2017 year proved to be a special one, as they also won the U18s Premier League and the U19s European Championships with England.
In 2021, when Chalobah made his Premier League debut, his team-mate since childhood was alongside him.
Eleven years on from the Champions League night at Stamford Bridge, those two sprightly youth players have swapped ballboy duty for regular Premier League football and will be top-flight opponents for the first time next year.
The only time they have faced off competitively against each other so far was in 2019, when Mount was on loan at Derby County and Chalobah was playing in a temporary stint at Ipswich.
