Pundit claims Chelsea player ‘would have been a great signing’ for Spurs

Former West Ham striker Frank McAvennie has said that Spurs missed a trick last summer by not signing Antonio Rudiger from Chelsea.

Tottenham were linked with a deadline day move for Rudiger after their move for Inter Milan’s Milan Skriniar collapsed.

It was reported at the time that Spurs made a loan offer which Chelsea accepted but the German international was not keen on making a temporary move to North London (The Athletic’s David Ornstein).

Rudiger has since managed to play himself back into contention and become a regular in the starting eleven since Thomas Tuchel replaced Frank Lampard as the Blues boss.

The centre-back recently admitted that he came close to leaving Chelsea last summer and even spoke with Jose Mourinho about a possible move to Spurs.

McAvennie believes the 28-year-old is exactly the type of player Spurs needed to bolster their options at centre-back and criticised Jose Mourinho for persisting with Eric Dier in the position.

The pundit told Football Insider: “Rudiger is a big guy and a wonderful player.

“He would’ve been a great signing because they need a centre-half.

“They have been playing the boy Dier there and he’s better than him. He is a midfield player at centre-half.

“You can do that for a game or two but it is not a long-term plan. They will get caught out.”

Spurs Web Opinion

Looking back on our summer business, our failure to bring in a top-class central defender proved a much bigger blunder than we thought it was at the time. It seemed like Spurs were sure that Inter would blink on the Skriniar deal and only scrambled for loan deals for the likes of Stones and Rudiger after the deal for Slovak fell through. I can understand why we did not do any business in January under the current climate as there likely was not a big market for the players we wanted to sell.

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