The talented 20-year-old is on loan at Sheffield United in the Championship this season.
Gilchrist hopes that he can have a productive season and then get a chance in the Chelsea first team.
He stated, per The Mail: “Literally from the first training session in which I saw him, he reminded me of myself. He was keen to learn, asking me questions about defending and constantly picking my brains over what I would do in different situations.
“And he’s 100 per cent in everything he does. Whether that’s the warm-up to get him going, he’s all-in. You don’t ever want to take that away. Even on his recovery days, he’s 100 miles per hour.
“As he gets older, he’ll understand how to manage that and how to be. But it’s a great trait to have for a young player and it can certainly set you apart.
“If you’re at Chelsea, you’ve got great ability in the first place to be there. But it’s really important for younger players to have that mentality and Alfie had that in abundance even from an early age.
“Even when I was having conversations with Alfie, he’d just broken into the Under 21s, which was great, but he had targets he wanted to hit – clean sheet target, goal target, and he wanted to make his debut for the first team.”
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