Antonio Rudiger says Chelsea will miss Willian should he ultimately decide to leave the club on a free transfer and compared the Brazilian winger’s abilities to former Blues talisman Eden Hazard.
Chelsea next face Bayern Munich in the Champions League on August 8 but face an uphill task to reach the quarter-finals having lost 3-0 in the home leg back in February.
And the match at the Allianz Arena is likely to be Willian’s last for the Stamford Bridge club, with him having rejected a new contract offer and Arsenal having been heavily linked with signing him when his contract expires.
Having arrived in the Premier League in 2017, Rudiger was welcomed into the dressing room by the 31-year-old and he says he’ll miss the winger should he leave in the summer.
“Since day one of coming to Chelsea, he and David Luiz got me into the team and helped me out in the first couple of months because it was not that easy,” the Germany international told reporters.
“He is a great guy and a really, really good footballer. He is calm and humble and it will be sad if I don’t see him again as a team-mate. He is not the type of player who talks that much.
“He does his thing on the pitch, just like Eden Hazard. By playing, he shows what he is about. He is a guy who dictates the game and not many players in the world have this type of quality.
“He is always training [hard] and practicing free-kicks after. He is someone who always wants to improve.”
Willian helped Chelsea to a top-four finish in the Premier League in the 2019-20 season and Rudiger has praised the work done by Frank Lampard in what is his first season in charge of the west Londoners.