I don't know what's worse, the fact that Antonio Rudiger is leaving Chelsea or the fact that the Blues had his replacement all along. A lack of planning has led to this very point, and I must say that I'm quite disappointed for two reasons.
Firstly, Rudiger, Andreas Christensen and Cesar Azpilicueta's future should have been nipped in the bud last season with either new contracts or new solutions.
Secondly, the sale of certain Chelsea players should never have happened.
Of course, hindsight is a beautiful thing. At the time, it seemed right to make these decisions, but now they have come back to haunt us.
Read More: Chelsea ace Antonio Rudiger reaches ‘agreement’ with club after Thomas Tuchel transfer admission
Fikayo Tomori, Marc Guehi and Tino Livramento are three options that Chelsea had in their ranks just last year. With the number of games and injuries that we have sustained this season, they would have been tantalising picks for Thomas Tuchel.
Of course, it's selfish to want to have kept each player. I assume that Guehi, who has captained his new team Crystal Palace in recent months, would have been subject to less game time. Probably similar to Trevoh Chalobah's current predicament at Chelsea. I expect the same would have been for Livramento. Despite showing great promise as a right full-back, Reece James would have been first in the pecking order, meaning he wouldn't have been afforded the same amount of time he now got with Southampton.
That leaves Tomori. I cannot work out for the life of me why we, as a football club, decided to let him go.
Tomori is a versatile centre-back that is comfortable on either the right or left side of the defence. Chelsea could have saved a lot more time and money if they had just stuck with the 24-year-old last year.
Last season, Tomori fell out of favour under Frank Lampard's reign. The ex-Chelsea manager's decision to exclude him from the team on match days was rather peculiar, and masses within the fan base failed to understand his reasoning. At one point, the England international was making such great progress and was en route to becoming a resident in the starting eleven.
It's astonishing how his future at Chelsea crumbled so quickly, and the club had allowed it to happen.
The now AC Milan player left Chelsea on loan in the 2021 January transfer window. This was before the arrival of Tuchel before Lampard was inevitably sacked. I can't help but wonder whether Tuchel could have revived his Chelsea career if we had just waited that extra week or so.
Tuchel has revived Ruben Loftus-Cheek and elevated Chalobah's game this season. There's not a doubt in my mind that he would have done the same for Tomori.
When you ask me, who would be the perfect replacement for Rudiger? I can only reply by saying that he was already here. It could have been Guehi, with the leadership skills and technical qualities that he possesses. Or better yet, it could have been Tomori. A young Cobham prospect who was a personal request from Paolo Maldini himself.
Chelsea's new owners and Marina Granovskaia can prevent this sort of issue from happening if they stick with a long term manager with a long term plan, but that's a discussion for another day.
