Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel isn’t sure whether his club will be able to afford the transfer fee needed to buy Declan Rice now Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich is no longer bankrolling them.
Although the German has claimed he is not even sure they could have afforded the £150million-rated West Ham star if the outgoing billionaire Chelsea owner was still writing the cheques to sign players.
Chelsea are long-term admirers of Rice, who has flourished at West Ham in recent seasons and established himself as a regular in Gareth Southgate's England side, having been released from the Blues academy as a youngster.
He has long been linked with a return to his boyhood club and speculation over his future is set to intensify after news broke that the player had turned down a third new contract offer from the Hammers and was open to leaving the Europa League semi-finalists this summer.
Asked prior to that news breaking if Rice was out of reach now given the crisis that has engulfed Stamford Bridge since Abramovich was sanctioned, Tuchel said: “Maybe he is out of our league if we don’t have the crisis. That can be when you hear the numbers that are floating around.
"As you know, we generally don’t speak about other players, when it comes to whether we are interested, not interested because we take care of the guys that we have here. And the situation gives me a slight advantage in that at the moment we cannot even think about buying or selling or doing whatever, so there is nothing to think about.”
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Still, Tuchel is a big fan of the England midfielder. He added: "I rate him very highly. It's not just that he seems to be a very nice guy, everybody tells me from the Chelsea academy, but he proves it, that is the most important thing. He proves it and it feels like he plays every single game.
"He is available, he is captain, he plays with a lot of responsibility, he is a very physical player. A very, very strategic-minded player. A key player for his team. Strong in set-pieces. But that I think that is not a surprise, everybody sees it. He takes responsibility. He is a huge part of the success of this team. And it’s impressive, of course."
Meanwhile, Tuchel has admitted Chelsea haven’t closed the gap on Manchester City and Liverpool as he would have liked after lifting the Champions League trophy last season. But the Blues boss insists there is no shame in their season if, as expected, they finish in the top four.
“We tried hard to close the gap,” said the German, whose team are 15 points behind Pep Guardiola’s leaders and 14 behind Klopp’s second-placed team. I could say that I tried everything and I would say that everybody in the building tried everything, the players as well, but there is room for improvement.
“The gap is big, but we are competing with maybe the two most successful teams that ever played in this league, so the stakes are high. Now we have to be the best we can be and we will be ready for a good fight from next season on. But we don’t feel ashamed and we should not feel ashamed and we should not feel disappointed because in general it is very tough to end up in the top four and from there we try to compete.”
