I left Chelsea more by cluck than judgement
Schurrle sabotaged by poison chicken
ANDRE SCHURRLE revealed a piece of dodgy chicken ended his Chelsea career – and turned him off meat.
Fulham’s German World Cup winner returns this lunchtime to Stamford Bridge where his star shone brightly with a Premier League winner’s medal, but faded just as quickly after he caught salmonella.
Winger Schurrle was one of Fulham’s goalscoring heroes as new boss Claudio Ranieri took centre stage for the first time last Saturday.
A 3-2 win over Southampton ended a run of seven straight defeats that cost Slavisa Jokanovic his job at Craven Cottage.
Now Schurrle, on a season-long loan from Borussia Dortmund, hopes to continue his newfound form at a ground where he started out by replacing Kevin De Bruyne against Hull in August 2013.
The 28-year-old said: “I’ve never been back, although I’ve walked past it a few times.”
The stroll brought back memories, both good and bad because of how it ended all so sud- denly and soon after he won a World Cup medal. Germany were on a short trip to Poland and he went down with salmonella after eating chicken.
He eventually recovered, but in a Chelsea squad stuffed with stars he struggled and was sold to Wolfsburg after just 44 league games and 11 goals.
Schurrle added: “It wasn’t as if I didn’t get a fair crack under Jose Mourinho.
Unbelievable
“I got on fine with him and I hope he does well at Manchester United. But in a club like Chelsea, they had so many big players.
“When I think of the squad we had it was unbelievable. When I was going there, to Jose and the team, it was not easy to be a regular starter. To be fair, in my first year I was really happy with the role I had, I started half the games or a little bit more.
“It was amazing being there, then the second year in the first half it was just very difficult. I had really bad salmonella. I was out for maybe three weeks and coming back I never really got the chance to prove myself being back 100 per cent. That was when I got the opportunity to go back to Germany and Jose let me go.
“I got salmonella with the national team – the only one who caught it.
“You see how skinny I am, so to lose three, four, five kilos it took me a really long time to get the strength back.
“There were days when I could not get out of bed. It was a bit of chicken... and I’ve never eaten chicken since, or much of any meat since. I am almost a vegan!”
Schurrle feels sorry for Jokanovic but already loves life under Ranieri (right), adding: “His main focus is being tactically and defensively more stable, being in a block, being compact and basically harder to beat.
“He always has a smile on his face and wants to work and speak to the players and get close to the players. He likes to have fun on the pitch.”