Chelsea defender Antonio Rudiger wants to join Tottenham as Jose Mourinho looks to bring in another centre-back before the window closes, according to The Athletic.
Mourinho wrapped-up his sixth summer signing with the loan capture of Carlos Vinicius from Benfica on Friday with the striker following Joe Hart, Matt Doherty, Sergio Reguilon, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Gareth Bale in moving to Tottenham.
However, Mourinho is still in the market for one more signing as he looks to bring in another central defender to replace Jan Vertonghen after the Belgian international left the club following the expiration of his contract.
Tottenham have been strongly linked with a move for Milan Skriniar in recent weeks but they are so far failed to agree a deal with Inter Milan for the Slovakian and Rudiger has emerged as an alternative target.
The Athletic claims Spurs are now targeting a move to sign Rudiger and the 27-year-old wants to join Tottenham despite the likes of Barcelona, AC Milan and Inter Milan also expressing their interest.
Rudiger is out of favour under Frank Lampard and has been left out of today’s Chelsea squad for the second consecutive game having fallen behind Thiago Silva, Kurt Zouma, Andreas Christensen and Fikayo Tomori in the pecking order.
The German international knows he needs to be playing regular first team football if he wants to play at the Euro’s next summer and it seems he wants to remain in London where he’s settled since joining Chelsea from Roma in 2017.
That put’s Tottenham in pole position ahead of the likes of Barcelona but as The Athletic points out, any deal with Chelsea is going to be complicated due to strained relations between the two clubs.
Chelsea are willing to let Rudiger leave on loan this summer but owner Roman Abramovich would prefer to do business with another club rather than Tottenham so is reluctant to grant him a move to their London rivals.
No Chelsea player has been sold to Spurs since Carlo Cudicini left Stamford Bridge 11 years ago so Rudiger could be facing a battle to convince Abramovich to agree a deal with Daniel Levy this summer.
We’ll have to wait and see how things develop but The Athletic suggests that a final decision could be made today and Rudiger would be another excellent addition to Mourinho’s squad if Tottenham are able to get a deal done before the window closes on Monday night.
