After failing to agree a deal with Inter Milan for Milan Skriniar, Tottenham turned their attention to Antonio Rudiger and sought to sign him on deadline day.
Jan Vertonghen and Juan Foyth joined Benfica and Villarreal respectively, so we’ve been looking for a replacement centre-back. Despite making progress on Rudiger, we ended up missing out on him and The Athletic have revealed why.
Rudiger did want out of Chelsea
Although we didn’t land Rudiger’s signature in the end, that wasn’t for a lack of trying. The 27-year-old wanted to leave Chelsea this summer after losing his place in the side. Kurt Zouma, Andreas Christiansen and Fiyako Tomori had been preferred at centre-back under Frank Lampard.
Rudiger was an unused substitute in the Blues’ 3-1 win over Brighton & Hove Albion (September 14), left out of the matchday squad in their 2-0 defeat to Liverpool (September 20), EFL Cup win over Barnsley (September 23), 3-3 draw with West Bromwich Albion (September 26), EFL Cup defeat to Tottenham (September 29) and 4-0 win over Crystal Palace (October 3).
The German international felt his time was up and sought a new challenge. He had positive talks with Jose Mourinho, but ultimately his decision to pull out was down to the negative reaction he would have got from supporters to join a rival.
Where does that leave us?
It is disappointing that we failed to sign a centre-back as planned, but it’s not the end of the world. We still have Toby Alderweireld, Davinson Sanchez, Eric Dier and Japhet Tanganga at our disposal, so we should cope until the winter transfer window opens in January.
That being said, Issa Diop, Ben White, Kim Min-jae, Lewis Dunk, Diego Carlos, Milan Skriniar, Ozan Kabak, Ben Godfrey, Kristoffer Ajer, Robin Koch, Guillermo Maripán and Ruben Dias were on our radar this summer and we had a lot of time to get a deal done, so fans are within their right to ask why Levy failed to deliver.
Here’s hoping we can rely on Alderweireld, Sanchez, Dier and Tanganga for the time being.