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Antonio Rudiger

I always thought of him as a mentally strong tough warrior of a player, but today the camera zoomed into his face once and he looked his a scared little mouse, he had anxiety written all over him.

Had a few good moments coming out and meeting the attackers in the early part but when Azpi went off everything went to sh*t for him.

 
Laughable to look back to earlier in the season when he was injured and we were all giving it "we'll be okay when Rudi is back - he is our Best defender".

He came back and then the problems REALLY started! To be honest, NONE of our defenders are much cop, but he is undoubtedly the worst.

 
Any player with speed goes past Rudiger as if he isn't even there. He has mobility of a sloth a and is completely devoid of any footballing intelligence.

On top of it, when put under any sort of pressure he tends to panic and make some idiotic decisions. How can someone so experienced constantly lack concentration and lose their cool so easily is a mystery to me.

 
Nibs said:
Laughable to look back to earlier in the season when he was injured and we were all giving it "we'll be okay when Rudi is back - he is our Best defender".

He came back and then the problems REALLY started! To be honest, NONE of our defenders are much cop, but he is undoubtedly the worst.
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Spot on, he is shockingly bad but for some reason escapes a lot of criticism on here. Frequently out of position, lacks concentration and his decision making is very poor. Personally I would let go him and Christensen in the close season if replacements could be found.

 
He looks as nervous as I feel whenever he touches the ball.

If he can help get Kai Havertz then maybe another year as a squad member rather than a starter .

Not a top level defender.

 
Up there as one of the worst CB’s I’ve seen at the club in my 27 years. Lucky he didn’t cost a goal when Christensen saved his arse. He’s the first one to go for me. The oldest and most experienced and by far the worst. No football IQ and his on the ball ability is like a baby giraffe.

Hope I never see him play for Chelsea again.

 
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He's regressed so much. You would never think that the player that defended so well in the cup final 2 years ago against United was the same player we seen today. He never used to be like this, it's like he has lost all composure this season. 

 
A donkey of a defender. 

Need to get as much as we can for him and Christensen so we can bring in at least one leader at the back. 

 
Chelsbear said:
A donkey of a defender. 

Need to get as much as we can for him and Christensen so we can bring in at least one leader at the back. 
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I do wonder when people bring this up. Is like with Drinkwater, Baka etc. Who do you see buying these players? This market will be dead. Before covid we could not shift our rubbish only on loan could we move them on, now when many clubs are suffering money wise many believe we can bring in decent funds for these sorts of players? We will be lucky to get their wages covered on loans.

Only way we sign Kai, a keeper, defender and whoever we want is if Roman puts his hand in his pocket and pulls the war chest of old out and covers the signings we want AND the wages of the players we want to ship out.

 
axman2526 said:
I do wonder when people bring this up. Is like with Drinkwater, Baka etc. Who do you see buying these players? This market will be dead. Before covid we could not shift our rubbish only on loan could we move them on, now when many clubs are suffering money wise many believe we can bring in decent funds for these sorts of players? We will be lucky to get their wages covered on loans.

Only way we sign Kai, a keeper, defender and whoever we want is if Roman puts his hand in his pocket and pulls the war chest of old out and covers the signings we want AND the wages of the players we want to ship out.
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There will be clubs in Germany who would take those two given how they have performed previously in thay league. It may not be for a big fee but it brings in some money and frees up wages. We usually loan out which is a short term fix but it it frees us up some funds then so be it. 

Roman will have to spend regardless because Frank and his team don't have the ability to coach our current crop to defend. 

 
Chelsbear said:
There will be clubs in Germany who would take those two given how they have performed previously in thay league. It may not be for a big fee but it brings in some money and frees up wages. We usually loan out which is a short term fix but it it frees us up some funds then so be it. 

Roman will have to spend regardless because Frank and his team don't have the ability to coach our current crop to defend. 
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Problem would be them being able to afford any fee and the wages those players commands. I just think many are under estimating what a big hit covid has had on football.

 
axman2526 said:
Problem would be them being able to afford any fee and the wages those players commands. I just think many are under estimating what a big hit covid has had on football.
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There is no denying the hit is has but there are still plenty of players moving clubs and for large sums of money too. 

 
Chelsbear said:
There is no denying the hit is has but there are still plenty of players moving clubs and for large sums of money too. 
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Aside from us and City who else is making big money deals? Honestly not been keeping up with anything none Chelsea.

 
That injury has done him, ever game we were in trouble he looked the worst defender, not even giving the attacker a contest in those 1 on 1 situations. It could be just his body not up to it, in most 50-50 situations, he's just backing off and let the attackers take charge. We may have to keep him until he completed his job as the special transfer agent

 
I don't understand why he has been playing so badly...

I saw in the first half 3-5 crosses coming towards him and he basically passed to Pepe, he didn't dare to even clear the ball away from our box and that's just strange. He lost all the grit and confidence that he had last season, he can't clear the ball properly anymore.

A similar thing happen a few games back when he came in as a sub only to keep the ball in our box and that resulted in an easy conceded goal.

He was hands down a really decent defender last season, no question about it, he looks really bad now, at least Zouma can clear the ball.

 
Even though there's a really bad defensive organisation in the team, a high line, and just a bad setup in general, there's no excuses for how bad he has been. The number of individual errors this guy makes a game is uncanny, he's easily cost about 10 goals at the very least just through errors alone, and that's being kind. 

I said it in the matchday thread, he's our very own Mustafi, absolutely abysmal. We need to sell this guy, him and Christensen are the two I want gone. 

 
Guy has been our best defender for the two seasons beforehand. You don't go from being very good (regularly mentioned in the top 5 CBs in the league) to being sh*t in a season. 

He hasn't done well and he wasn't great yesterday, but for me it is as much down to organisation or lack thereof in our defence. We're poorly organised and we expose our central defenders constantly to one on ones. You can easily say that he should have stopped Bellerin in the lead up to the goal, but how is it he is standing there with barely a Chelsea player within 10m of him? You isolate someone one on one like that where someone is moving at speed and you are largely stationary and rarely will you get a good result. I've seen Koulibaly isolated like that at Napoli under Ancelotti's loose defence and the result is largely the same. 

Rudiger needs to improve and I think he gets another season to do that. Just as Frank gets another season to start to properly organise our shoddy defence. 

 
axman2526 said:
Aside from us and City who else is making big money deals? Honestly not been keeping up with anything none Chelsea.
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Well, we won't be getting big money for them though, correct? Rudiger can probably fetch 15-18m from some Bundesliga or Serie A club, Christensen due to his age probably 25-30.

Wages may be a problem, but this is not a Drinkwater situation where you're ready to dump the player for free as long as someone's willing to pay him. Both Christensen and Rudiger are model professionals, have no issues outside the pitch and have done well the last time they featured in Italy and Germany. I'm sure if we were to entertain that idea, they'd find employment fairly soon.

The real issue is who to replace them with and the money it'll take. 15 years ago there was an abundance of world class centrebacks, nowadays someone like Van Dijk stands out like he's a superman in a sea of mediocrity.

Still, I don't see how we can possibly lose by unloading those two and bringing in re-enforcements. Rudiger never was a required standard and Christensen never will be. Time for change.

I'd keep Zouma and Tomori as back-ups. Zouma is a decent second choice from the bench, as long as he's OK not being a starter. His flaws are well-documented but his size and physical prowess makes him a valuable defensive option in a tough league like EPL. Tomori is a question mark but he deserves time to develop and prove he's the real deal.

 
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Spiller86 said:
Guy has been our best defender for the two seasons beforehand. You don't go from being very good (regularly mentioned in the top 5 CBs in the league) to being sh*t in a season. 
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You can if you've had an injury as bad as his, Essien went from one of the best CMs in the world to barely PL standard almost overnight.

 
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