Atletico Madrid's Alvaro Morata 'Didn't Want to Leave the House' at Chelsea

Atletico Madrid loanee Alvaro Morata has said he "stopped enjoying football" during his time at Chelsea, and it got to the point where he "didn't want to leave the house." 

Morata, 27, signed for Chelsea from Real Madrid for £60 million in July 2017.

The striker's Stamford Bridge career started brilliantly, netting six goals in his first six Premier League appearances.

However, the Spaniard's form deserted him, and by the time he joined Atelti on an 18-month loan deal in January, he had added only 10 further Premier League goals in 41 appearances:

Morata has now explained to El Chiringuito (h/t Calciomercato) how he was affected by his poor form in west London:

"At Chelsea I didn't want to leave the house anymore, it was hard. I thought I'd go far enough away so that I didn't have to have the pressure to always win. I didn't want to talk to anyone or meet people."

Since joining Atleti, Morata as rediscovered his goalscoring touch, especially this season.

In Sunday's 3-1 La Liga win over Espanyol, he found the net for the sixth consecutive game in all competitions:

His fine form has earned him a recall to the Spain squad for their upcoming UEFA Euro 2020 qualifiers against Malta and Romania:

Morata told COPE and Radio Marca (h/t Marca) he is happy again at the Wanda Metropolitano Stadium:

"I'm happy at Atleti, I'd stopped enjoying football and now I'm happy. ... I didn't believe in myself [at Chelsea]. In England, I had the feeling that when I missed [a chance], my team-mates were looking at me as if I wasn't going to do anything good.

"If only I'd been able to mature before 20-22 years old, but I'd never faced such a limiting situation. I told my wife that we were going to go as far away as possible in January because I couldn't deal with this pressure. Atleti came up, I had six or seven big offers, and Chelsea wanted me to stay, but I decided to do what I'd been looking to do for various summers."

Atleti confirmed back in July that they will sign Morata permanently at the end of the season when his loan spell is over:

At present, it looks a deal will work in everyone's favour.

Morata was clearly unhappy at Chelsea, but he has found his form again at Atleti, and Chelsea will not miss him given Tammy Abraham has risen brilliantly to the challenge of being the Blues' first-choice striker in 2019-20.