Under Premier League rules, a club’s squad can have a maximum of 25 players registered for the campaign – eight of whom must be considered ‘homegrown’.
U-21 players are exempt from the ruling, but otherwise, you can see the restrictions imposed upon managers looking to build a successful squad for the season ahead.
This brings us to Chelsea, whose squad size is – as of August 9 – a whopping 43 players. With deals for Pedro Neto and Samu Omorodion agreed, that number might just rise. It has created the remarkable scenario where players signed within the past 18 months by the club will be left unregistered for the new campaign – a truly bizarre turn of events.
So how will Enzo Maresca balance his squad and turn Chelsea back into a relevant Premier League force once more?
Lofty Expectations
Those who follow football odds may be surprised to learn that Chelsea, despite their travails last season, are considered the fourth-most likely winner of the Premier League this term.
The Premier League winner odds mark them down as a 14/1 chance, behind Liverpool (13/2), Arsenal (7/4) and, of course, Manchester City (13/10).
Such a billing suggests that the Blues will, perhaps, finish fourth and clinch a Champions League place for 2025/26 – a remarkable turnaround from their woes in recent seasons.
Those expectations are built around the form Chelsea showed at the tail end of the 2023/24 campaign when they won five games in a row and looked like a team of contenders once more.
Enzo Maresca has been officially named as Chelsea’s new manager!#BBCFootball pic.twitter.com/57pxTZTl80
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) June 3, 2024
However, the chaos continued and Mauricio Pochettino – having masterminded that improvement – has left Stamford Bridge since. If you ask Leicester City fans about his replacement, Maresca, the picture isn’t one of universal popularity despite the Foxes romping to promotion from the Championship under his lead.
Squad Goals
First things first, he’ll need to figure out which of the 25 players in his squad he wants to register. That includes sifting through seven – yes, you read that correctly – goalkeepers, while trying to name eight homegrown stars.
You sense that Tosin Adarabioyo, picked up on a free transfer from Fulham, has been signed to help with that. He, along with Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, count as homegrown picks, as do Trevoh Chalobah, Ben Chilwell, and Raheem Sterling. Goalkeepers Robert Sanchez and Marcus Bettinelli hold dual Spanish-English and Italian-English nationality respectively.
Chelsea’s transfer business has been a chaotic splurge ever since Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital took charge a little over two years ago. More than £1.2bn has been spent on signings in a scattergun recruitment drive that has seen the Blues throw a wide net over young talent in the hope some turn into future stars.
Maresca will also be tasked with blending a bloated squad and fielding an XI that can fit into his tactical style. The Italian favours an extremely high defensive line, which at times appears almost kamikaze in nature – for context, Chelsea have played five pre-season friendlies to date and conceded 12 goals in them.
A third for Celtic.
🔵 0-3 🍀 [76’] #BluesInTheUSA
— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) July 27, 2024
How seriously we take the results of exploratory friendlies remains to be seen, but it’s evident that Chelsea’s opponents have found it pretty easy to play around the Blues’ press and expose that high line.
Within their opening eight Premier League games, Chelsea take on Manchester City, Liverpool, Brighton, Crystal Palace, and West Ham – those fixtures offering a clear insight into where the Londoners are at under Maresca’s guidance.
If they got off to a sluggish start, the pressure will mount… and then the cycle of managerial sackings and lavish transfer spending could kick in come January once more. Under this regime Chelsea, on and off the pitch, appear entirely unpredictable.
