Over the last few months, Chelsea have been negotiating with key defenders Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen, as it turns out, both will be leaving respectively to Real Madrid ( Rudiger ) and Barcelona ( Christensen ) once team mates will become rivals in Spain, Simon Johnson from The Athletic has shed more light on what actually happened between Chelsea and Christensen.
Chelsea had found an agreement for a new £140,000 a week contract, with just minor details to finalise. However, this was what turned out to be the start of a sour turn of events, from Tuchel dropping Christensen in several matches, the Danish defender only started 3 league games between September 26th and November 30th, Tuchel said at the time he did this on purpose as he hoped it would influence the contract negotiations. One can look at this in many angles, if you trusted him for the future was the right way to go about things by dropping him? Was it club influenced and forced upon Tuchel?
Christensen’s agent wanted to be paid an agents fee over 2 years, Chelsea proposed it over 4 years according to The Athletic. Furthermore, Christensen was not offered a signing on bonus or fee, something that we have seen offered by Real Madrid towards Antonio Rudiger, and is common.
In January, Christensen changed agency from his father. Christensen was now being represented by the Kin agency, It was seen as another deliberate step in some quarters to engineer a move away, especially as with six months left on his Chelsea deal he could now officially begin negotiating a pre-contract with foreign clubs.
Andreas Christensen perhaps won’t even get a chance to say goodbye to the team he joined in 2012, as Simon Johnson states it would be surprising if he featured at all in the last 2 league games against Leicester or Watford.
Not the most loved of characters during his time at Stamford bridge, mainly due to his quiet nature and tendency just to get on with playing and not really mix with supporters after games or pump his fist at the badge with also having to deal with Criticism from fans over mysteriously missing important or serious matches with a stomach ache or illness dating back to 2019 when now Lazio head coach Maurizio Sarri said that he gets nervous before matches and often has to go to the toilet. However it will still be sad to see him to, and Chelsea fans won’t forget the times he did deliver in big occasions, such as the UCL final in 2021 and MOTM performances at Anfield.
