Borussia Monchengladbach chief Max Eberl concedes it's unlikely that Andreas Christensen will be returning next season.

Eberl has always maintained that Chelsea would be recalling the Dane this summer, but had also insisted there was a chance of doing a deal for the defender.

But yesterday, he admitted: "This is a big task that we have to solve. We took him two years ago, nobody expected anything. Today, some tears flow that the player will leave us.

"But we had to replace many good players in the past. Even now, we have solutions in mind. Perhaps one or the other will say replacing Christensen is impossible. But that was the case with Granit Xhaka, Marco Reus and Marc-André ter Stegen.

"We've done well."