Thiago Silva has been informally offered a return to his boyhood club Fluminense. The veteran defender signed a one-year contract extension earlier in February, keeping him at Chelsea until the end of next season.
Silva has featured 32 times for the Blues across all competitions this term, helping the west Londoners reach the Champions League quarter-final. Despite Chelsea's disastrous results, the Brazil international has played a pivotal role in the success which the club have enjoyed.
However, all good things must come to an end and, with a handful of young defenders climbing the ranks, the 38-year-old looks set to take up a mentorship role in the final 12 months of his deal. Wesley Fofana and Benoit Badiashile look well positioned to establish themselves at centre-half, while Levi Colwill will also be hoping for a place in the starting lineup too following his return from loan.
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With an element of doubt over Silva's future at Chelsea, he's been told that Fluminense are prepared to welcome his back with 'open arms'. Speaking on the Globo’s Cheguei Podcast, Fred said: "Open arms. Thiago depends much more on him. The president talks to him."
Speaking to Sky Sports following the Blues' exit from the Champions League, Silva criticised the club's lack of planning and demanded that the same mistakes are not made. He said: "I think we've already taken the first step.
"It was a mistake, but it's happened. Now we've got to take a step back and see what we did wrong. There's no point looking at the coach and saying, 'It's this guy or that guy's fault', if we don't step up to the plate.
"The club are going through a tough patch, it was all a bit vague at the beginning, then there was a change of ownership, many players came in. We even had to extend the dressing room as it wasn't big enough for all the players.
"A positive is that we've got great players in the squad. On the flip side, someone is always going to be annoyed or feel down because not everyone can play. The coach can only pick 11 players yet there are 30-odd here. That's an issue, isn't it.
"Some players are out of favour. Auba came in as a starter but he's not in the Champions League squad as there was a limit of three, and we made eight signings in January. We've got to take stock and put together a plan for next season so that we don't make the same mistakes."
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