Cesc Fabregas reflects on his career as he prepares to leave Chelsea and offers advice to Callum Hudson-Odoi

Cesc Fabregas has used his imminent Chelsea departure to send a message to the young talent emerging at the club like Callum Hudson-Odoi to seize every minute of their careers, after admitting his own 16 years in the game has flown by him.

The 31-year-old has travelled to the south of France on Sunday to hold formal talks with AS Monaco ahead of a January transfer to the Principality’s Ligue 1 side, with Chelsea willing to allow him to leave after he became a bit-part player under Maurizio Sarri.

The Spain international soaked up an emotional farewell at Stamford Bridge on Saturday after the 2-0 FA Cup third round victory over Nottingham Forest, leaving the pitch after a lap of honour in tears amid a standing ovation.

Having made his 501st appearance in English football following long spells with first Arsenal and the Chelsea, either side of a return to Barcelona, Fabregas reflected on how quickly his career has gone by, and urged the young players just beginning their careers to saviour every second of what lies ahead of them.

“It feels like it was last week I started playing professionally and now it is over 15 years,” Fabregas told the Chelsea club website.

“It is a long time but for the young players when they start playing, my little advice is to enjoy it every single second because it goes so fast. In football you have to be ready every three days, you have to live with criticism, you have to live with everyone saying how good you are – up and downs - and you just think I am young, I have time but time really does fly, so enjoy every single second of it.”

One of those players is Chelsea midfielder Hudson-Odoi, who is on the verge of breaking into the first-team this season after being given a taste of the action from Sarri. And ahead of his Stamford Bridge departure, Fabregas gave the 18-year-old protégé a glowing reference in which he stated his expectation for the academy product to develop into a “world class” player.

“He has got everything to make it in world football,” Fabregas added. “I have told him that if he does not really make it at the very top I will be disappointed because he is one of these talents you can see can be fantastic. He can be world class, so he just needs to keep his feet on the ground, keep working hard.

“He is a humble boy, he really loves playing football and hopefully he can really make it very soon.”

Despite all the fond farewells, Fabregas has no plans to retire any time soon as he looks set to link up with former Arsenal teammate Thierry Henry with AS Monaco, and he hopes that he has many years ahead of him due to his style of play being based largely around his passing ability rather than his speed or physicality, which will drop off in the later years of his career.

“It is always something that I have had and it feels like growing up and getting older, it is one of those things that really does never go away because it is technique,” he added. “Physicality goes away from all of us unfortunately when you get older, you lose speed, you lose some sharpness, but technique I think is something that always stays with you when you have something, so hopefully it can stay with me for a very long time yet.”

Sadly for Fabregas, he missed out on the perfect Chelsea swansong as his chance to find the back of the net was denied in the form of Forest goalkeeper Luke Steele saving his poorly-struck penalty. “With the penalty, when I stopped in the middle of my run I saw the goalkeeper going down and I thought that I had it, so yes, it is unfortunate but the day I did 100 caps for Spain I also missed a penalty!”