Chelsea defender puts pressure on club for new contract

Stefan Bienkowski

• Updated: 19 May 2021 15:43 BST
• 2 min read

Chelsea defender Antonio Rudiger has put pressure on the club’s director of football to offer him a new contract. 

Rudiger struggled for game time under Frank Lampard in the first half of the season, often finding himself on the bench as an unused substitute or not in the matchday squad at all. 

However, since Thomas Tuchel became the club’s new manager, the German international has started all of Chelsea’s last six Premier League games. 

As such, the defender has quickly moved up the club’s list of defenders and could now be pushing for an extension to his contract – which is set to expire at the end of next season. 

Rudiger has suggested that he would be more than willing to consider extending his stay at Chelsea beyond 2022, but he will first need to see some action from the club’s director of football Marina Granovskaia.

“The thing is I cannot give myself a new contract,” Rudiger told Sky Sports. “The talks have to come from the board, from Marina [Granovskaia], I’m very calm when it comes to that.”

When asked about being dropped from the side under Lampard’s management earlier in the season, the defender added: “I’m a competitor, I want to play. Obviously it is frustrating and it was the first time in my career that I had this type of situation,” 

“I just said to myself ‘work, try hard to get back into the first team’. Now I can say I’m receiving the good from the hard work that I did before.

“You just have to get ready,” Rudiger explained. “You have to always make yourself available and always be ready in your mindset. Maybe in the future – I hope not, but this is football – someone gets injured and maybe they are going to say your name and you have to be up there and ready.

“This is how I prepare for every game. Although maybe you know you’re not playing because you can see it through the training, but in my head, I always prepared like I was going to play so that I’m always ready in my mind.