Andreas Christensen rejects Chelsea’s five-year contract at the last minute
According to The Telegraph (Subscription Required) [h/t Metro], the Chelsea board were ‘stunned’ by the last-minute demand from the agent of Andreas Christensen.
Chelsea board has been facing specific difficulties to renew the contracts of their key defensive duos. They were hoping to avoid Antonio Rudiger’s situation with his defensive counterpart, Andreas Christensen, who is also serving last year of his contract for the Blues and would be eligible to talk with foreign teams from January.
The Danish player has been a consistent performer and one of the essential parts of Thomas Tuchel’s defensive project at Stamford Bridge. This season he helped keep the clean sheet in 5 games out of 8 in the Premier League.
The London team’s board has been stuck at the negotiation table for quite some time now. They had high hopes for their most recent offer, and they hoped it could make the ‘breakthrough in negotiations.’ The proposal included a five-year contract with a massive pay raise for the 25-years-old player.
With an initial verbal agreement with the agent, they were hoping to get the player’s signature. On d-day, Christensen’s agent took eleven-hour to make minor changes that were agreeable for Chelsea. But, the Blues’ board were left ‘stunned’ when the agent demanded the term be reduced to three-year from the proposed five-year.
The Blues board were ‘absolutely unwilling’ to the term reduction as it was one of the most critical parts of the deal. Christensen is now 25 and is entering his peak years, and Thomas Tuchel’s team would want to hold onto the player in such years when his contribution to the team would be more productive.
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Coming so close to an agreement, the Chelsea board now has to rethink their strategy again and the fans would want the club to put forth a new deal to tie down Christensen, who is one of their better players.
This is a vital time for the Blues board as they could lose both of their prime defenders for free if they fail to come to an agreement.