Thomas Tuchel has admitted the likes of Cesar Azpilicueta and Marcos Alonso now face a “strange” limbo at Chelsea.
Blues boss Tuchel has already revealed the Stamford Bridge club are in talks with Azpilicueta about his future, despite the club captain having triggered an automatic one-year contract extension.
Barcelona continue to be keen on the right wing-back and the Catalan giants are understood to hold strong interest in Alonso too.
Chelsea cannot resolve the futures of contracted players until Todd Boehly’s takeover is complete, leaving manager Tuchel conceding several players were facing an uncertain few days ahead.
“It’s a bit strange, you don’t really know what’s going to happen,” said Tuchel.
“If we are able to sell, do we want to sell, do we have a chance to get alternatives?
“So the situation is, not only for us, as those responsible for the rebuild and responsible for the transfers, but also for the players, a strange situation.
“And you could feel it. Over a long, long period of time we managed to keep the focus and put it aside, but, the longer it went after the international break, it had an impact on us, and still does.
“So let’s see, when, finally, we will have the chance to act and make up, because the disadvantage in terms of timing for the rebuild is big.”
Chelsea beat Watford 2-1 at Stamford Bridge on Sunday to cement their third-place Premier League finish, with a clutch of players completing the campaign without knowing their plans for next season.
Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen have certainly completed their time at Chelsea however.
Germany defender Rudiger will head to Real Madrid, while Christensen is poised to complete his Barcelona switch.
Chelsea will hope to be back to business as usual shortly, with US magnate Boehly’s takeover still on course to be complete before the May 31 deadline.
Roman Abramovich’s UK Government sanctions have left the Blues operating on a strict temporary licence and only new ownership will remove those restrictions.
Chelsea will hope to offset the losses of Rudiger and Christensen as soon as they are able to dip back into the transfer market.
A recalibrated squad could hand the Blues the chance to look to switch to a back-four set-up next term, but Tuchel downplayed any such ideas.
“I don’t know if it would be a chance of another shift,” said Tuchel.
“I don’t think it’s a problem of structure that we have, because we delivered in this structure at a very high level with our performances.
“But we are looking in every direction. I think the structure suits our players very well with the players you mentioned, but also with Thiago Silva, our midfielders, Reece James and Ben Chilwell because they have more freedom to attack on both sides.
“There were some reasons to play this structure in the way we played it and we were very successful and at a high level very stable.
“It’s not the plan to change it, but maybe we are forced to. It’s no problem to adapt and find solutions, but the problem is we are forced to be passive and it’s what we don’t like and we are not used to it. So I can answer the question more precisely when things move forward and we can start to act.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here