Victor Moses' unlikely rise to the top no surprise to those who knew him best after becoming Chelsea's linchpin

Victor Moses is the indispensable man on the best side in the country. No-one else at Chelsea can do what he does and without him, Antonio Conte’s 3-4-3 system, his 93-point team, would collapse.

After spending the previous three seasons being shipped around on loan, it might be a surprise. Never able to make much of an impression at Liverpool, Stoke City or West Ham United, Moses looked set to be sold last summer. Just another youngster who could not cut it at Chelsea.

But the unlikely reality, Moses as Premier League champion, on the brink of a double, is not a surprise to everyone. Certainly not to the people who remember him from his time at Crystal Palace. They all say the same thing: that Moses was the most naturally talented teenage footballer they had seen, or have seen since. Fast, strong, skilful and decisive, Moses was a phenomenon in school and academy football long before he played as a senior.

Though that does not mean that they all knew that Moses would definitely reach the top. In fact, the talk at Crystal Palace at the time was that he would either do what he has done, playing in the European elite, or he would vanish without trace as a professional player.

So says James Scowcroft, who played for Palace for Moses’ first seasons and always knew there were only two outcomes for the youngster.

“I remember saying to the academy manager Gary Issott,” Scowcroft tells The Independent, “that Moses will either play in the Champions League or on Hackney Marshes. One or the other, but he was never going to be a mid-level journeyman footballer. He had that much ability.”

Neil Warnock tells a similar story. Before Moses met Conte last summer, Warnock was the most important manager of his career, the man who brought him into senior football and showed him what he needs to do.

It all started in October 2007 when Simon Jordan, who says that none of Moses’ success has surprised him, sacked Peter Taylor and appointed Neil Warnock, with the team struggling in 19th place in the Championship.

Warnock recalls it very clearly. “I remember we didn’t have any pace. I shouted over to Gary Issott, ‘do we have any pace in the kids?’ He said we had two lads, Victor Moses and Sean Scannell. ‘Are they good enough for the first team?’ ‘No, not yet.’ ‘Well they are now!’ So I screamed at them over. They wouldn’t say boo to a goose either of them, such quiet lads. ‘He says you’re not ready for the first team, what do you think?’ They hardly said anything. ‘Will you play in the first team if I pick you? ‘Yeah’, they said. That’s how they were.”

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Moses was thrown into first team football at the age of 16 and immediately showed that he could handle it. “You could see from day one training with the first team that he wasn’t out of place,” Scowcroft says, “he would drop his shoulder, go the other way and embarrass the senior pros.” He took to Championship football quickly too, scored his first goal away at West Bromwich Albion and celebrated with backflips. Some at the club were not impressed at the risk he was taking but they did not want to fine him. He was only on £300 per week.

But Moses’ explosive attacking power was not enough. Not to play for a Neil Warnock team in the Championship. So Warnock told the 16-year-old that there were two very different paths his career could follow, and it was up to him.

“He couldn’t defend for England, he played out wide with his gloves on, he never tackled back,” Warnock remembers. “Players were capitalising on his weakness there, and I’d just about had enough of him.”

“One night we were playing away, I pulled him and said: ‘Listen Victor, the time has come now son. You’ve got to decide now. I can’t do any more. You’ve either got to decide whether you’re going to play for Bromley, or you can go all the way to the very top with your ability. But you’ve got to contribute more team-wise.’”

Warnock’s warning worked. “That night we played it was absolutely bucketing down. I’ve never seen him work so hard in his life, up and down, back and around, tackling, heading, unbelievable. I remember saying to him after, ‘welcome to the real Victor Moses’. After that he never had a problem with defending.”

Fast forward 10 years and Moses has found his perfect role, with plenty of defending. His future was uncertain when he joined Chelsea’s pre-season tour last July. It always would be, after three loans in three years but no permanent move. But Antonio Conte saw in Moses the attributes he values most: hard work, athleticism, and the ability to follow instructions.

“I realised quickly that Victor could stay with us,” Conte recalled. “I saw his potential quickly and told him he will stay with us.” That was a start but the crucial moment came in October when Conte switched to a 3-4-3 system. The right wing-back role was perfect for Moses, getting up and down, defending in a five but always there as an overlapping option going forward.

All Conte had to do was to methodically teach Moses the fine details of the role. This took hours of training ground work. Conte is not a manager who leaves anything to chance but he is one of the very best at coaching and improving his players and getting his points across. All that rigorous positioning work, dragging players around the pitch, had the desired effect. Moses became the player Conte needed him to be.

Conte has given Moses the two things he always needed the most: total support and detailed instruction. That is what he had been lacking ever since Rafael Benitez left Chelsea in 2013 and Jose Mourinho decided Moses was not for him. But now he has them both, Moses has become the top player he was expected to be.

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“Conte is black and white with him,” Warnock says. “I remember, you had to go through everything with Victor. He always wanted to do. The thing was, he was so polite, if you told him and he didn’t understand it, he wouldn’t ask, or say ‘I’m sorry I didn’t understand you gaffer’. He’d nod his head and say yes. It didn’t do him any good.”

Moses always stood out for his humility and modesty and no-one has a bad word to say about him. Simon Jordan says that he “could not speak highly enough” of Moses and that he was always a “good kid across the board”. All that goodwill has been vindicated by performances that make Moses one of the most important players in the country. Jordan even thinks he could go on to greater things. All it took, to get the best out of this brilliant talent, was the right coach.