Chelsea need stability and clarity as Thomas Tuchel exit rumours begin to swirl again

Chelsea are resigned to losing Rudiger and Christensen, but now the rumours concern Thomas Tuchel too. The new owners can’t arrive too soon.

These remain uncertain times for Chelsea. The race to take over the club seems to be permanently a couple of days away without having yet arrived, and while it remains highly likely that they will return to the Champions League come the end of the season, work will have to be carried out on the playing squad during the summer and nobody yet knows what the appetite for spending will be on the part of those new owners.

The transfer saga that has been looming over the club for the whole of this season is approaching its endgame, and it doesn’t look like a successful result for the club. Antonio Rudiger was left out in the cold by Frank Lampard but has grown exponentially as a player under the guidance of Tuchel; Chelsea have been prevented from discussing a new contract with him since the sanctions against Roman Abramovich were put in place, but an earlier, substantially improved offer was rejected and Real Madrid have swooped. The Bernabeu now seems almost certain to be his home from this summer.

It is completely understandable that the loss of a player with such leadership qualities should have sent a cold chill through Stamford Bridge. When a player of this stature leaves a club, they leave a space behind them that is far greater than anything visible from the 90 minutes that the rest of us see once or twice a week. It’s about the atmosphere around the training ground, the dressing room and the gym. It’s about having a structure in which there are players who stand out as an example to players of all ages, an example that others can follow. Everybody at Stamford Bridge already knows