Paul Merson says there is “no chance” Antonio Rudiger stays at Chelsea

Antonio Rudiger is 6 months away from being a free agent, and while Thomas Tuchel keeps saying the club hope to keep him – and the player never admits he wants to leave, it looks more and more likely that he will walk away from the club on a free now.

Paul Merson certainly thinks so. In his column at The Daily Star he asserted that he’s certain the former Roma man is set to leave.

“Chelsea are going to miss Antonio Rudiger when he goes because it will take £60-70m to replace him,” he said.

“Rudiger is definitely leaving. If he wanted to sign a new contract he would have done it by now. There’s no chance he stays now.”

Sadly, we reckon he’s spot on. There’s always a chance that the club finally change their policy and offer him the money he wants, but if we’ve got to December without that happening we don’t see it happening now.

We’d better start the hunt for his replacement, and as Merson says, set aside some serious money for it too. The kinds of players we would be looking to to come in and perform at that kind of level right away would certainly cost the £60-70m

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