Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel admits Toni Rudiger's decision to leave has hurt his teammates.

Rudiger, who has been a key player for the Blues, will leave Stamford Bridge when his contract expires at the end of the season.

Chelsea were unable to negotiate a new deal for the centre back due to the current sanctions imposed on the club.

"It surely affects the team but I cannot tell you to which degree. The longer the situation goes [on], now it has a huge affect because Toni leaves us in the middle the process where we are sanctioned and could not even fight, could not do another offer, could not be in negotiations.

"It clearly has an affect and it makes not so much sense to deny it, we lose now one of our key players. This decision has an effect on the dressing room because Toni is not isolating when he's here at Cobham and does not talk to anyone so he is a huge part, he is a leader and of course the situation is like that.

"The situation regarding to the future of every individual player is not that clear because there are no talks for nobody at the moment.

"We try to minimise the influence, I think it's important to accept it and not use it as an excuse, so if there's a certain degree of distraction, a certain degree of uncertainty, okay we accept it but there is still another 100 per cent to reach and this is still our level."