Rudi has done well at the club, makes the odd error though think has a big effect in the dressing room.

Always makes you wonder where the next player with that drive will come from.

 

 

Wonder how well either Trev or AC could play the LCB role, cause I reckon Toni would thrive taking Ben's spot while he is out. 

Nah, leave Rüdiger alone! He's thriving in this particular position - no experiments there, please. (Not gonna happen anyway I reckon). 

Fabulous player in the form of his life - crossing fingers but will shed a little tear when he leaves after this season.

 i had to check the calendar, for a moment i thought it was the 1st of April! 

Play Rudi LWB oh please !!!!

3 hours ago, turnyitb said:

 i had to check the calendar, for a moment i thought it was the 1st of April! 

Play Rudi LWB oh please !!!!

Yeah cause he does not spend a lot of the games in a forward position on the left 🤣

8 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Yeah cause he does not spend a lot of the games in a forward position on the left 🤣

oh why not then aye. 

Alonso is more than capable of filling that position. why people look to put square pegs in round holes i don’t know. 

In addition to Rudi being a poor fit (epecially considering we have the likes of Alonso in the squad), the last player we want to shunt out of position is our only specialist left-sided centre back. There is nobody else in the squad who can replace Rudi in the starting XI, whereas we have a number of players who could feasibly do a job in place of Chilwell.

4 hours ago, PloKoon13 said:

In addition to Rudi being a poor fit (epecially considering we have the likes of Alonso in the squad), the last player we want to shunt out of position is our only specialist left-sided centre back. There is nobody else in the squad who can replace Rudi in the starting XI, whereas we have a number of players who could feasibly do a job in place of Chilwell.

Given he looks likely to be off in the summer, we are hopefully working on a solution to that. Perhaps the solution is Levi Colwill. Or perhaps one of Trev or AC take the spot.

Should have scored at the end there. 

16 minutes ago, Deino said:

Should have scored at the end there. 

Yep, but this is what happens when you're relying on your defenders to score the goals all of the time, they will often miss those types of chances.

Will be interested to see how no chilwell affects Rudis form.

Some reports out there have said that Toni has told TT and the club's hierarchy that he is not interested in discussing a new deal anymore as the club are not getting near to what he wants and he feels insulted by being offered less than Kepa, Timo and others who don't offer to the team as much as him.

Real Madrid are current favorites to sign him.

3 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Some reports out there have said that Toni has told TT and the club's hierarchy that he is not interested in discussing a new deal anymore as the club are not getting near to what he wants and he feels insulted by being offered less than Kepa, Timo and others who don't offer to the team as much as him.

Real Madrid are current favorites to sign him.

If that is true, then good luck to him. Contracts don’t work that way, and anyone you are signing on big fees will be on significant wage increase compared to what they were on at their previous clubs. That isn’t a good bargaining point.

If he leaves I am convinced we will get someone in more than capable of filling the void. Would love to see him at a Madrid/Bayern, and watch him get exposed in a back 4.

15 minutes ago, ducavis said:

If that is true, then good luck to him. Contracts don’t work that way, and anyone you are signing on big fees will be on significant wage increase compared to what they were on at their previous clubs. That isn’t a good bargaining point.

If he leaves I am convinced we will get someone in more than capable of filling the void. Would love to see him at a Madrid/Bayern, and watch him get exposed in a back 4.

Real will pay him 10mill per year, us no more than  7mill. Sounds like done deal. Good luck to him hopefully he stays professional for the rest of the season.

Apparently TT assistant, who is also Hungarian, has pushed very hard for this deal and we have signed the player to replace Toni, according to Rossi, boss the Hungarian national side:

https://weaintgotnohistory.sbnation.com/chelsea-fc-transfer-rumours-news/2021/12/6/22820446/hungary-national-team-coach-believes-attila-szalai-to-chelsea-is-a-done-deal

https://theathletic.com/news/real-madrid-emerging-as-favourites-to-sign-antonio-rudiger-for-free-with-no-fresh-chelsea-talks-held/k4XIwzcBNlMv/?source=twitteruk

Looks like he'll sign a pre-contract with Real Madrid in about a month. That will be one interesting situation if we get them in the the next round in the Champions League.

This on top of the Christensen situation and injuries will probably derail our entire season. 

3 minutes ago, Sindre said:

https://theathletic.com/news/real-madrid-emerging-as-favourites-to-sign-antonio-rudiger-for-free-with-no-fresh-chelsea-talks-held/k4XIwzcBNlMv/?source=twitteruk

Looks like he'll sign a pre-contract with Real Madrid in about a month. That will be one interesting situation if we get them in the the next round in the Champions League.

This on top of the Christensen situation and injuries will probably derail our entire season. 

It's all so very typical Chelsea isn't it? Everything falling into place, then suddenly it all comes crashing down. It's either the highest highs or the lowest lows for this club, rarely any inbetween.

2 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

It's all so very typical Chelsea isn't it? Everything falling into place, then suddenly it all comes crashing down. It's either the highest highs or the lowest lows for this club, rarely any inbetween.

Seemingly a severe lack of foresight going on again unfortunately.

Mentioned in the article that both Werner and Havertz earn about £270.000 a week. They got those contracts rather recently so obviously it's going to be difficult or impossible to play hard ball with players that's outperformed them for the last year or so. I'm all for keeping a good wage structure but ours is all over the place to begin with and not resigning Rudiger & Christensen when they've been part of the best defence in Europe up until this seems like an odd place to start anew if that's what the club is thinking with regards to wage policy.

Why would anyone offer those two a contract extension 12 months ago? One couldn't get a game, the other looked worse each time he played. There was a plan, renewing their contract certainly wasn't the right choice at the time. It just happen the new Manager turned their fortune around, and now they are too good for the club. Christensen looked salvageable, so let's hope the iron lady not go too tough on him. If we get another defender in, happy to let Rudiger go next month, very difficult to see a player fully focused when he's already signed up for another team.

2 minutes ago, icecoolguy22 said:

Why would anyone offer those two a contract extension 12 months ago? One couldn't get a game, the other looked worse each time he played. There was a plan, renewing their contract certainly wasn't the right choice at the time. It just happen the new Manager turned their fortune around, and now they are too good for the club. Christensen looked salvageable, so let's hope the iron lady not go too tough on him. If we get another defender in, happy to let Rudiger go next month, very difficult to see a player fully focused when he's already signed up for another team.

👏.. Well said. The Rudiger one is very interesting as he is been protected by a system that hides his flaws. He is also the only CB (bar Sarr) that hasn’t been moved around in the back 4. You play him in the centre of back 3 and he will be well exposed. No way is he a £200k/w defender based on half a season.

10 minutes ago, icecoolguy22 said:

Why would anyone offer those two a contract extension 12 months ago? One couldn't get a game, the other looked worse each time he played. There was a plan, renewing their contract certainly wasn't the right choice at the time. It just happen the new Manager turned their fortune around, and now they are too good for the club. Christensen looked salvageable, so let's hope the iron lady not go too tough on him. If we get another defender in, happy to let Rudiger go next month, very difficult to see a player fully focused when he's already signed up for another team.

We should have given Rudiger the 200k he wants a week ages ago. We have far less important players on more than that already so it's not going to mess up our wage structure as it's already messed up.

It's a few extra millions over the course of a contract. Replacing him outright when we get no money for him? Going to cost a fortune. Let's say we buy Kounde for his £77 million release clause, then wages on top of that and you have no guarantees he'll work out either. So that's a £100 million + gamble instead of investing a bit more in someone who we know can perform in our current system.

Edited December 9, 20214 yr by Sindre

1 hour ago, Sindre said:

We should have given Rudiger the 200k he wants a week ages ago. We have far less important players on more than that already so it's not going to mess up our wage structure as it's already messed up.

It's a few extra millions over the course of a contract. Replacing him outright when we get no money for him? Going to cost a fortune. Let's say we buy Kounde for his £77 million release clause, then wages on top of that and you have no guarantees he'll work out either. So that's a £100 million + gamble instead of investing a bit more in someone who we know can perform in our current system.

Bang on, somehow we've managed to end up with four defenders all out of contract at the same time and able to sign pre contracts in under a month with new clubs. This could destabilize our whole season whilst knocking value from the club. Hopefully a suitable compromise is made that benefits all parties pdq.

11 minutes ago, charierre said:

Bang on, somehow we've managed to end up with four defenders all out of contract at the same time and able to sign pre contracts in under a month with new clubs. This could destabilize our whole season whilst knocking value from the club. Hopefully a suitable compromise is made that benefits all parties pdq.

Or it could be the dawn of a new era ? A chance for us to get two defenders who can play in a back four.

24 minutes ago, charierre said:

Bang on, somehow we've managed to end up with four defenders all out of contract at the same time and able to sign pre contracts in under a month with new clubs. This could destabilize our whole season whilst knocking value from the club. Hopefully a suitable compromise is made that benefits all parties pdq.

At this moment, there is a good chance that all 4 will leave too. That will set us back a few years. Finding one replacement is hard enough, but 4? That isn't happening in one transfer window and even if by some miracle we did replace them all, the chances of them all being a success and adapting instantly are very very slim. We would have to be in the market for a RB too seeing as Azpi is both a backup RB and backup CB.

I naively believed we were starting to build something great with this group. It felt like everything was falling into place. I should have learned from past experiences though. If there is one club that loves to shot themselves in the foot when things are going great, it is our club.

Football changes quickly they say, well it certainly does with Chelsea football club. We are a club that can go from euphoria to pessimism within a week. This club plays havoc with our mental state 😆