Antonio Rüdiger completes £34 million move to Chelsea

The German international has left Roma after two years.

Chelsea have completed the signing of German centre-back Antonio Rüdiger, who joins the Premier League champions from Italy’s AS Roma. Antonio Conte has reportedly forked out £34 million to bring the highly rated 24-year-old to Stamford Bridge, adding depth to a defence that has recently lost the long-serving John Terry. But what, more broadly, does Rüdiger’s addition mean?

Chelsea’s back three is going to be reworked

At 24, Rüdiger didn’t leave Roma to warm Chelsea’s bench. It’s not only that he’d surely want assurance of regular first-team football, but also the fact that he’s just too good. Since moving to Roma from Stuttgart a couple of years ago, he's established himself as a fixture in the German national team, and gained a reputation as one of the top young defensive talents in the game. He’s surely going to be in Conte’s lineup come the first game of the season.

However, that poses a problem: Who’ll make room for Rüdiger? Assuming David Luiz — the rock at the heart of Chelsea’s back three — is about undroppable, then it’s going to be Gary Cahill or César Azpilicueta who’ll make way. The latter is the obvious choice, being a full-back by trade, but he was arguably the most impressive of the trio in their title-winning campaign.

In some ways this isn’t such a big problem, with the addition of a punishing rash of Champions League games to the schedule ensuring that there’ll be plenty of room for rotation — at least in the first part of the season. However, Conte certainly has some thinking to do.

We’re likely to see some of Chelsea’s younger defenders depart

Rüdiger’s arrival spells bad news for the likes of Kurt Zouma and Andreas Christensen, both of whom would have been hoping to make a run at the first-team in the near future. They’re both very talented players, and at 22 and 21 respectively, still have plenty of room to develop. But it seems Stamford Bridge isn’t the place for that development, and at least one of them is likely to leave this summer — either on loan or permanent deals.

Inter Milan have reportedly been enquiring about the availability of Christensen, who has spent the last couple of seasons on loan at Borussia Mönchengladbach in Germany. He'd immediately established himself a regular in Gladbach's lineup, and it’s unlikely he’ll be satisfied to drop down to a position as fifth or sixth choice at Chelsea. The Blues don’t seem anxious to push him out the door, though.

By the same token, the likes of Tomás Kalas, Kenneth Omeruo and Matt Miazga — all of whom were loaned out last season — may be heading out the door again over the next few weeks.