Pedro Neto has been heavily scrutinised since joining Chelsea from Wolves for about £54m in August 2024.
Pedro Neto has described Chelsea as the ‘most talked-about club’ in football. From winning the Club World Cup to fighting for a place in either of UEFA’s three club competitions in the space of a year, the 26-year-old winger has experienced the highs and lows of life at Stamford Bridge under BlueCo.
In an interview with DAZN, Neto was asked to compare the Blues to a Portuguese club. He said: “It’s a difficult question. Chelsea is a club of great magnitude, and it’s hard to compare it to one in Portugal.
“In my opinion, Chelsea is a team that, in bad moments, is talked about a lot. So I would say that, in Portugal, maybe Benfica has that dimension. When things are not going well, it’s probably the most talked-about club, too. So if I had to compare it, it would be Benfica.”
Neto will face familiar opposition when Chelsea lock horns with Manchester City in the FA Cup final on Saturday, May 16. On his relationship with fellow countrymen, in the Premier League, he said: “I enjoy it more and more, also because I have a good relationship with them and I like those little battles.
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“In the last game against City, I was talking with Matheus Nunes and Bernardo Silva. I said to Matheus: ‘You still haven’t caught me once.’ Then there was a ball where I tried to combine with [Moises] Caicedo, and he played it too wide.
“We were both running side by side, and he started saying: ‘You’re crazy, you’re crazy!’ And I told him: ‘If the ball had come to my side, you had no chance!’”
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Neto continued: “It’s something fun and something that takes us to another level. That competitiveness, and then going to the national team and still having that banter, saying what happened.
“And above all, it’s the opportunity to play with players of that calibre. In the last game, Bernardo had the ball, and I was telling him: ‘Go on, don’t be scared.’ Nobody notices that from the outside.
“Then there was one where I tried to dribble him, and he took the ball and said: ‘You’re crazy, you thought you’d get past me.’ It’s very funny.”
The Chelsea winger will hope to secure a place in Roberto Martínez’s squad ahead of the World Cup this summer. If Neto helps the Blues qualify for the Champions League and win a piece of silverware, he could even start for his country in the United States.
Speaking to club media ahead of the end-of-season run-in, Trevoh Chalobah commented on the ‘people who talk’. The Cobham graduate said: “When you don’t win games, it’s hard to get that determination back.
“For us, it’s just about resetting and getting our standards back. As I said, it’s still the same players we had at the start of the season when we were flying.
“It’s not like we lose our abilities overnight. It’s just obviously resetting and getting that winning feeling and that mentality back. For us, we just have to block out all the noise and trust in ourselves, speak between ourselves, communicate and trust in our abilities.
“That’s what we need to do from now until the end of the season. As I said, whether you do badly or do well, there’s always going to be people who talk. It’s important we just focus on what we have in front of us.”
