Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel ready to let 12 players leave in the summer: Reports
Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel is reportedly preparing to let up to 12 players leave the club this coming summer.
Express has reported that despite Chelsea's success of late, the club are looking to sell 12 players in the summer transfer window.
Thomas Tuchel's side are coming off the back of a successful Club World Cup tournament. They won their third trophy under the German and have a huge summer ahead.
The futures of club captain Cesar Azpilicueta, Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen have been under intense speculation. The trios contracts will expire in the summer of 2022.
César Azpilicueta is closer to Barça every day. He has had an agreement with the club for a while now, and Chelsea do not have the option to renew his contract unilaterally.
— @sport https://t.co/tE48SdzIBz
Azpilicueta is reportedly a target for Barcelona with Christensen having been linked with moves to Barca and Bayern Munich.
Rudiger, meanwhile, is attracting interest from a number of top European sides. Manchester United, Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain have all been linked with the Germany international.
Players on the fringes of first-team action will reportedly be let go.
Kepa Arrizabalaga, Ross Barkley and Ruben Loftus-Cheek's futures could all lie away from Stamford Bridge.
Kepa's position has been usurped by Edouard Mendy since the Senegalese's arrival at the club in 2020. The Spaniard was dropped for the club's Club World Cup final despite featuring in the tournament prior.
The latter two have rarely featured for the Blues, with Barkley having spent last season on loan at Aston Villa.
Could Chelsea be about to let first-team regulars go?
The reports also suggest that Timo Werner, Christian Pulisic and Hakim Ziyech could be put up for sale.
Since their huge arrivals to the club, with the trio costing a combined £137.7, they've yet to truly hit the ground running.
The club are also considering the futures of Jorginho, N'Golo Kante and Marcos Alonso.
Despite the trio featuring regularly for Chelsea under Tuchel, there is a feeling that now is the right time to move them on.
Kante has encountered injury issues in recent times with the midfielder having started just 11 Premier League matches this season.
Jorginho, who came third in the 2021 Ballon d'Or race, has been a key figure in Tuchel's move but he is being linked with a return to Italy.
With Chelsea's interest in West Ham United midfielder Declan Rice, the duo's time at the west London outfit may be up.
Declan Rice:
"To this day, I still honestly don’t know the exact reason [why they let me go], I wish I did. I think it was probably down to the fact that as a kid, I was tiny, I was going through a massive growth spurt at the time."
[via The Overlap / YouTube]
As for Alonso the 29-year-old has been filling in for the injured Ben Chilwell.
Despite this, there have been rumors of a move for Brighton & Hove Albion's Marc Cucurella which has cast doubt on the Spaniard's future at the club.
Chelsea had a quiet January transfer window and only brought back Kenedy to cover for Alonso at left back. They had a big summer in 2021 when they brought in Romelu Lukaku from Inter Milan for £97.5 million.
The club sold other strikers like Tammy Abraham while Olivier Giroud was allowed to leave on a free transfer.