Azpilicueta ‘really committed’ to Chelsea ... at least until the end of the season

Chelsea captain César Azpilicueta has been recently linked with a January exit, and while that obvious bit of nonsense is obviously nonsense, the 32-year-old longer-term future is far from as assured.

While we generally don’t get around to extending our veterans on rolling one-year contracts until around springtime — Thiago Silva a rare exception — Azpilicueta is making it sound like that’s far from a foregone conclusion.

“As I always said, I feel I have the trust and confidence of the club and now I am focused on every game. They are very tough games, and I am enjoying the moment.

“Eventually the moment will come, but I am fully focused on hopefully getting as many trophies as we can and then we will see.

“I cannot say anything more than that I am really committed and have a lot of things ahead in the coming months and hopefully we can have a very good season.”

-César Azpilicueta; source: Chelsea FC

Thomas Tuchel hinted a few weeks ago that this situation is entirely in Azpilicueta’s hands, so it’s unclear whether “the moment” he refers to here is the moment to sign, the moment to leave, or the moment to simply decide — we will see, indeed, borrowing his good pal Eden Hazard’s favorite phrase.

Either way, it doesn’t sound like we’ll know for a while yet, so just like Dave, we should just focus on the football at hand. (Plus, you know, the similar expiring-contract situations of Antonio Rüdiger and Andreas Christensen.)