Former Chelsea forward Charly Musonda has revealed he offered to play for free in a desperate attempt to remain at the club.
Musonda joined the Blues as a 15-year-old in 2012 but made only seven senior appearances during his time at Stamford Bridge.
The Belgian, who is now 26, did not feature for the first team after suffering a serious crucial ligament injury while on loan at Dutch club Vitesse in 2018.
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Musonda departed the club last summer and signed a contract with Spanish outfit Levante after a move to Zulte Waregem in his home nation collapsed.
Musonda revealed that he tried to convince former head coach Thomas Tuchel to keep him at the club, even offering to play for free.
He told The Beautiful Game Podcast last December: "I spoke with the manager and I obviously knew what he thought of me in training.
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"I explained to him the same thing, I will play here for free. It’s not to do with the contract, I will literally play for free this year.
"I can be the last guy in the squad. Train hard, basically build my way through training, play with the 23s, get some fitness back and from there see.
"It’s a long season, there’s a lot of games. I’m not even asking to start those games, I was just saying, if I can come on, get 15, 20 minutes here and there.
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"He (Tuchel) understood. We had a good chat and he said, 'Listen, it’s not up to me. The contract talks are something else'."
Musonda admits he broke down in tears when discussing his future with ex-Chelsea technical director and goalkeeping legend Petr Cech.
"It’s been a difficult one," Musonda added. "Even the post on Instagram, I wasn’t going to be too emotional with it because I didn’t want to go long into the details and go long into the memories of everything.
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"I spoke with Petr Cech in August on the phone and after those talks, I knew straight away, okay, I’m going to leave in August here, there is nothing else I can do.
"After the phone call, I was literally crying because I’d been there for a while. Even now, it’s going to take some time to get around it."
Topics: Chelsea
Rory O'Callaghan