Chelsea midfielder Danny Drinkwater completes loan move to Kasimpasa

Stefan Bienkowski

• Updated: 23 May 2023 08:45 CDT
• 2 min read

Chelsea midfielder Danny Drinkwater has moved to Turkish side Kasimpasa S.K in a loan deal for the remainder of the season. 

The 30-year-old has been struggling for game time in Frank Lampard’s side this season, with just one League Cup appearance to date. 

Despite signing for the London club in 2017 from Leicester City for a reported fee of £35 million, Drinkwater has made just 12 senior appearances for Chelsea over the course of the last three and a half years. 

Loan moves to Burnley and Aston Villa followed, after an inability to break into Chelsea’s first team, but trouble off and on the pitch limited his success at both clubs, which has now likely led to the midfielder seeking a move away from English football. 

Kasimpasa are one of five clubs from Istanbul in the Turkish top flight and finished sixteenth in the division last season. 

This time around the club are doing slightly better, with six wins and four draws from their opening 17 league games placing them fifteenth in the Turkish top flight. 

However, Drinkwater’s new club still sit just six points above a possible relegation spot, suggesting the English midfielder will be expected to quickly join the club’s ranks and help them battle their way to mid-table safety. 

With a contract with Chelsea until summer 2022, it seems likely that Drinkwater will be hoping to use the move to Kasimpasa to rebuild his reputation as a dependable Premier League midfielder. 

If the loan move proves to be successful, there’s every chance that an English team could be tempted to make a bid for the midfielder at the end of the season and since Chelsea clearly have no intentions of using Drinkwater in the first team, it would seem as though the London club would be willing to allow him to leave the club for a fair price.