Rudiger: Why I wanted to leave Chelsea last summer
Chelsea defender, Toni Rudiger, has said he was seriously thinking about leaving the club last summer.
Rudiger found himself out of favour under former boss Frank Lampard and Tottenham and Paris Saint Germain were keen to sign him before his revival under Thomas Tuchel.
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Rudiger told the Mirror: “When you look back to the summer, there were points I wanted to leave.
“Because if you think about my age, what’s coming up this summer, the Euros and everything, I didn’t see myself in the squad for one month so my first thought was to leave.
“It was kind of close, there were serious talks but it didn’t happen.
“Then I stayed, I had a chat with Frank and then I was back in the squad. I got some game time and then towards the end of Lampard’s reign, I started to play a bit more.
“Then I said to myself: ‘OK, let’s see what happens.’ Then my mindset was to work my way back, the change came and things went well and my relationship with Thomas Tuchel is normal and there’s respect there which is how it should be.
“At the end of the day, the coach has his vision of football and how he wants us to perform and he backs it 1,000 per cent. You can see it on the sidelines. It’s like a tunnel vision, he has things in his mind and he wants us to perform like that.”