Schelotto’s Brighton career appears over as he joins Chievo on loan
Brighton and Hove Albion right back Ezequiel Schelotto has returned to Italy by joining Chievo Verona on loan until the end of the season.
And in what looks to be a parting shot at the Albion management, the Argentinian posted on his Instagram profile, “Some decisions have been made about me without any explanation. things that I will never understand but always respect. I leave the best to my colleagues in the brighton and the fans who have always respected me.”
Schelotto hasn’t featured once so far this season, not even making the bench for the Carabao Cup second round meeting with Southampton when Chris Hughton preferred to start development squad midfielder Will Collar at right back.
Quite what he has done to be frozen out in such a spectacular manner nobody knows, but clearly it hasn’t sat well with Schelotto as he returns to Serie A with Chievo, who currently sit bottom of the table with just one win to their name.
Schelotto has previously played for the Vernona-based club having spent the 2014-15 season on-loan at Stadio Marc’Antonio Bentegodi. Chievo are one of seven clubs in Italy that Schelotto has represented, the others being Cesena, Atalanta, Catania, Inter Milan, Sassuolo and Parma. He earned one cap for Italy in a friendly against England in August 2012.
He may have fallen out of favour with the Albion management, but the man known as ‘The Greyhound’ remains a popular figure with Seagulls supporters. He arrived at the Amex in the final hours of the summer 2017 transfer window for £2m from Sporting Libson but he had to wait until December to make his full debut in Brighton colours.
It didn’t go too well either, Schelotto looking so out of his depth in a 2-0 defeat at Huddersfield Town that he could have been mistaken for somebody who’d won a Make a Wish competition which offered 90 minutes of Premier League football to a lucky raffle ticket winner.
Things didn’t get much better away at Tottenham Hotspur in his second start, another 2-0 defeat in which he looked like a rabbit in the headlights during the first 20 minutes at Wembley.
It says much about Schelotto’s character though that he battled back from those setbacks and managed to win the Albion fan base over, a barnstorming run of form in January seeing him voted our WeAreBrighton.com Player of the Month.
His cavalier performance from right wing back against Chelsea was the undoubted highlight as he flew up and down the line like a man possessed, long hair flowing behind him and leaving Macros Alonso in something of a daze.
Schelotto ended up playing 23 times last season but never really recovered from a chastening experience in April’s 3-2 defeat against Crystal Palace in which he was absolutely dire as Wilfried Zaha ran riot, without resorting to going down like Gemma Collins on Dancing on Ice for once.
The Greyhound managed only one more start in an Albion shirt after that – in the dead-rubber final game of the season away at Liverpool – and it seems unlikely we’ll ever see Schelotoo pull on the stripes again as he is out of contract this summer.
