Chelsea’s Overcrowded Squad Is A Problem For The Rich

Chelsea’s Italian manager Enzo Maresca gives instructions from the technical area during the Premier League match Chelsea-Manchester City, at Stamford Bridge, on August 18, 2024

Adrian DENNIS

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The arrival of new signings at Chelsea is slowing down the first steps of Enzo Maresca, the coach in charge of managing an overpopulated squad and showing the exit door to the unwanted players, all united in a ‘Bomb Team’ worth several million euros.

Every summer, the same formula is repeated: American co-owner Todd Boehly and his partners, who arrived in London in May 2022, spend without control to try to turn around a sporting situation that was lackluster for the ‘Blues’, who finished sixth in the Premier League last season.

The ten players who have landed at Stamford Bridge during this transfer window have raised the total expenditure to 1.4 billion euros since the departure of former Russian boss Roman Abramovich, according to specialist media.

These new arrivals have created a logjam in the dressing room, a problem of the rich that has become the main topic during Maresca’s press conferences.

“I don’t work with 42 players (the number of players listed on Chelsea’s website), I work with 21,” the Italian replied this week. “It’s not the chaos it looks from the outside,” he added.

The media hype on this issue increased in volume when Raheem Sterling, one of the most famous footballers in England, was not included in the squad for the first match of the season against Manchester City (2-0 defeat).

“The chaos continues as a befuddled Boehly searches for the club’s soul,” wrote the Guardian. The Daily Mail was more blunt: “£185m spent this summer, 10 signings and 43 players in the squad but… still no goal.”

Maresca, like his Argentine predecessor Mauricio Pochettino, finds himself exposed in the front line and left to his own devices when it comes to justifying the west London club’s transfer policy.

He started off cautiously but has since become more vocal as he has been asked about the players he has been leaving out, despite having long-term contracts with Chelsea.

“That’s not my problem,” he said. “If they have a six-year contract, I don’t like them… they can have a 20-year contract, it doesn’t matter to me. I’m here to make the right decisions for the team, nothing more.”

He claims to have been “honest” and not “brutal” in the individual conversations he has had with unwanted players, such as Sterling himself or left-back Ben Chilwell.

The English club is also looking to get rid of Kepa Arrizabalaga, Armando Broja, Trevoh Chalobah and, above all, Romelu Lukaku, the Belgian striker signed in 2021 for around 115 million euros, by loan or sale.

Some of these players train separately from the group, under the direction of former goalkeeper Carlo Cudicini.

The press has renamed this group of thirteen players, on whom Chelsea spent almost 300 million pounds in total, the ‘Bomb Team’.

The transfer window closes in England in a week, on August 30, leaving the Blues little time to fill a squad that, despite its large number of players, is seriously unbalanced.

Maresca has too many central defenders and too many players for the midfield and the wingers, with up to eight players fighting for two positions (Sterling, Palmer, Nkunku, Mudryk, Madueke, Gabriel, Neto, Félix).

On the other hand, at left back or at the top of the attack, the options are much more limited, and the young Spaniard Marc Guiu (18 years old) will have to act as Nicolas Jackson’s substitute.

Pending the latest market moves, there is a game to win on Sunday (13:00 GMT) at Wolverhampton. Anything other than a win could add to the noise at a hectic start to the season.