Italian outlet Milan News on Thursday featured an interview with journalist Stefano Boldrini. He’s Gazzetta dello Sport’s correspondent in London, and has been following the transfers between Premier League and Serie A sides.
Chelsea had a couple of players who were heavily linked to Italian clubs. One of them was Timoué Bakayoko, who despite being wanted by the Rossoneri, ended up moving to Napoli on a loan deal.
Boldrini says the Blues were tough when negotiating the Frenchman’s exit, and that’s why Milan couldn’t find a deal for him.
“For Bakayoko they asked for a high sum for the redemption and in any case he was a player out of the Chelsea project for some time now. Rather than selling them off, they preferred to keep him or give him away on a dry loan, still getting paid,” Boldrini told Milan News.
Boldrini says it was the German defender who didn’t fancy a move to Serie A, and despite Frank Lampard’s problems over how to use him, the Blues decided to keep him in the squad.
“Rudiger’s situation is different from Bakayoko’s. The German in the seasons in which he was in London has become an idol of the fans and Chelsea fans aren’t easy to win over. Until recently Lampard also liked him, then he had an injury, they made him come back too soon and he got hurt again. Then Chelsea this summer focused on Thiago Silva and in my opinion it’s a questionable operation due to his age, he’s no longer the Thiago Silva of ten years ago.
“Lampard, however, believes that Rudiger, being a player with personality, would struggle to accept the bench since today the starters are Thiago Silva and Zouma. The coach struggles to manage this type of player, and the discussion he’d have had with Alonso also shows it.
“This shows, together with Rudiger’s speech, that Lampard struggles to manage personality footballers. Rudiger isn’t a kid, and keeping him as a reserve would be a problem for Lampard. In any case, the club never intended to sell him, especially since it’s a matter that came out almost at the end of the market, too late to strike up a deal. Plus, the player was definitely not thrilled with the idea of being treated like a product. Surely Rudiger would be the starter at Milan, Roma, even Barcelona. Quoting Spalletti, if Milan had taken him it’d have been ‘a lot of stuff’. In any case, today it’s too early to make a forecast on Rudiger’s situation for the January market.”
Rudiger only made it to the bench for the first game of the season, and didn’t even make it to the squad since then. Now with the transfer window closed, we should soon see Frank Lampard reintegrating the defender.
