Antonio Rüdiger has blamed his decision to leave Chelsea on talks over a new deal with the club going quiet early this season.
The Germany centre-back is joining Real Madrid on a free transfer after deciding not to extend his contract. Rüdiger rejected Chelsea’s first offer of £140,000 a week last summer and says he was then left in the dark about his future for five months.
Chelsea went back with another offer of £230,000 before sanctions were imposed on Roman Abramovich in March. It would have made Rüdiger the highest-paid defender in their history but talks broke down again when the club received demands for a huge signing-on fee for the player and large fees for the 29-year-old’s representatives. Chelsea were unable to resume negotiations after Abramovich was sanctioned and the uncertainty led to Rüdiger accepting Madrid’s offer.
“Unfortunately, my contract negotiations had already started to get difficult last fall,” Rüdiger said in a piece for the Players’ Tribune. “Business is business, but when you don’t hear any news from the club from August to January, the situation becomes complicated. After the first offer, there was a long gap of just nothing.
“We’re not robots, you know? You cannot wait for months with so much uncertainty about your future. Obviously, no one saw the sanctions coming, but in the end other big clubs were showing interest, and I had to make a decision. I will leave it at that, because business aside, I have nothing bad to say about this club.”
Chelsea are losing Andreas Christensen on a free to Barcelona, who are also targeting Marcos Alonso and César Azpilicueta. Thomas Tuchel will need to strengthen his defence and plans “honest” talks with Todd Boehly about signings once the American’s consortium has bought the club.
“We will be very open and honest,” the manager said. “He will get my point of view if he wants to have it. We are losing key players and we have struggled lately to win our home games.”
Chelsea have won only eight home games in the league this season. Tuchel, whose side host Watford on Sunday, knows that must improve if they are to challenge Manchester City and Liverpool.
“I think we can do better,” he said. “I think there is not a lot wrong. It is margins. We will look into the season. It is not a moment where we have analysed everything and found the answer because I would have analysed it before. We struggle obviously with efficiency, with goalscoring records, with consistency, with determination and position in the box against teams that defend deep.”
Tuchel said Chelsea had suffered with injuries. “We have lacked huge quality like N’Golo Kanté, Ben Chilwell, Reece James. It is maybe a miracle we are in the top three when we have been without these key players. Because we have missed them for weeks and weeks and weeks. It never stopped for us. Maybe the only thing we have to change is that we have everybody available.”