Former Chelsea defender Antonio Rudiger has admitted he was desperate to leave the Blues during Frank Lampard's time as manager of the club.
The Germany international spent five years at Stamford Bridge before his move to Real Madrid in 2022, winning a whole host of honours with Chelsea including the Champions League and FA Cup in that time. For the majority of his west London stay, Rudiger was one of the Blues' standout players, but he did endure some low points.
Towards the tail-end of Lampard's first reign as Chelsea boss, Rudiger was on the outskirts of the first-team and failing to get as much game time as he'd grown used to. The first half of the 2020/21 campaign saw Lampard favour Kurt Zouma and Andreas Christensen instead.
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Opening up on that period of his career, Rudiger made clear he wanted out of his Chelsea stay. He told Goal : "To be honest, I still can’t say exactly what happened back then. That’s part of football. Maybe he [Lampard] had other ideas or saw other players better. But the good thing about football is that the answer is on the pitch and I think I gave the perfect one."
Rudiger was pressed for comment on whether any of the Chelsea players to his knowledge ever downed tools on Lampard and didn't give their all out on the pitch. His answer was emphatic. The current Los Blancos star added: "Nothing like that has ever happened in my career. I even played under Lampard again at the end of his tenure. Let me put it this way: if it doesn’t fit at some point, then it doesn’t fit anymore. But no footballer in this world loses on purpose."
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Rudiger's desire to leave Chelsea at that time was also fuelled by his wish to play under Thomas Tuchel, who was the manager of Paris Saint-Germain at the time. That was until he lost his job in the French capital and luckily for Rudiger, was named as Lampard's replacement.
"I really wanted to leave. I wanted to leave. I wanted to join Thomas Tuchel at Paris Saint-Germain, that was my wish," Rudiger added.
The 30-year-old explained that Tuchel's 'honest manner' suited him better than Lampard's man-management approach. Rudiger discussed how he felt more trusted by his fellow countryman, though Tuchel too lost his job eventually. Rudiger and Lampard's paths would cross again briefly when the latter was re-hired as an interim boss at the back end of the 2022/23 campaign and Chelsea met the defender's current outfit Real Madrid.
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