A big summer awaits Chelsea and as I write this, a big week awaits the club too on the pitch.

The ramifications of the upcoming two games span far wider than the future of Enzo Maresca and the fans’ sanity over the summer.

I’ve been generally positive over the project, though my patience and faith is waning, and this is the summer I believe we could truly cement this project as something that will go well and produce great results.

The only issue, and the issue that is grinding away at my faith, is that we have consistently made poor decisions in the transfer window for the last year or so. 

I feel that Chelsea were on the right track in the summer of 2023. We brought in some great players, some relatively unknown and some known like Nkunku.

The appointment of Pochettino also made sense, a man with vast experience in helping younger players. Ultimately, the squad was good but it wasn’t anything more than that.

I do think Pochettino, as flawed as he was, was ultimately handicapped in what he could actually do vs what was expected of him. 

The squad, at the time, was not necessarily suited to heavy possession football and expecting total control from him in the first place was unrealistic.

That being said, what ended up happening (the chaos football we saw) made a lot of sense anyway in terms of developing young players and allowing them to ‘express themselves’. 

The issue I have is that the squad is still not suited to heavy possession football. This is after spending over £200M on players in the summer window of 2024. 

We built a good core with some very very talented young players. This is undeniable. Yes, there are some mediocre players that we’ve bought but overall our ability to identify top young players shouldn’t be questioned.

What should be questioned is our ability to buy top young players that we actually need and that will actually help this team win things. 

We spent £200M on players in 2024 to still not have a top goalkeeper, centre back of the relevant profile and striker. 

I’m not going to sit here and act as some self proclaimed footballing genius, but it’s obvious to anyone of every single experience level that players like Robert Sanchez, Wesley Fofana and Nicolas Jackson are simply not players that we can rely on over an entire season to get us consistently good results. 

I wrote an entire article detailing how not having another striker alongside Jackson could cost us UCL football and we are ninety minutes away from this becoming a sour reality.

I was writing tweets talking about how Robert Sanchez, for all his upsides, has too many downsides to be a keeper that wins us more points than he costs us.

Wesley Fofana, albeit a great player, has an injury record that would indicate he wouldn’t play more than 15 games in a season and rather unsurprisingly, has not been able to play that number. 

I fundamentally do not understand how any of these things were not addressed last summer and instead we spent a ridiculous amount of money on Dewsbury-Hall (who we didn’t need), Joao Felix (who we didn’t really need) and Jorgensen who we do not even use.

It is a genuine fascination of mine that there are teams of people working at the football club to deliver results with, what would appear at times to be an unlimited pool of money, who have simply dismissed these obvious concerns about the squad. 

Regardless of your thoughts on Duran, Samu or Olise, they are all players that would’ve walked into this team and provided us at least 6-8 more points than we have right now which would have comfortably secured Champions League football. 

Yet here we are, ninety minutes away from heartbreak that will likely carry on to the Conference League final and cost us silverware. 

The only benefit of our situation, and trust me I’m saying this with an extremely positive and optimistic outlook on our future, is that we still have a decent enough squad core to build from. The situation remains the same as last summer. 

We have a good team. We have a good core and base to build from. We are maybe two or three signings away from cementing ourselves as a good team. We are then maybe one or two more seasons/years away from winning things. 

This reality has not changed, but our intent and ability to actually achieve and witness this reality is seemingly not there if we follow in the footsteps of last season. 

So… What do we need to do?

We need to build on what we have. Truth be told, anything short of Champions League football this season is a failure, as is not winning the UECL. 

That being said, our actions last summer have definitely contributed to that failure if it were to take place. Despite the flaws in our squad, as I have said, it is good enough to get UCL football and win the UECL. I have no doubts about this.

What we can control is giving us the best possible chance at achieving these targets next season if, in the worst case scenario, we somehow find ourselves in the Conference League again. 

And in order to give ourselves the best possible chance, we need to invest wisely. 

We don’t need to buy a goalkeeper – just be smart and use what we have

I have always had concerns over Petrovic and his on the ball abilities but a loan to Strasbourg has, as I am reliably informed by people that watch them a lot more than me, rectified his flaws in that aspect. 

Given the current keeper market and also given our incessant hoarding of every keeper in the world, I just don’t see the downsides to selling Robert Sanchez and keeping Petrovic as our first choice. 

Jorgensen can remain as an understudy, and if needed, provide good backup to Petrovic.

Jorgensen is a good keeper and is clearly talented but needs a bit more experience to flower into a truly great keeper. 

Penders will arrive at Chelsea, and in my opinion, should be loaned to Strasbourg to replace Petrovic after the Club World Cup. 

That leaves us with three solid keepers, Penders getting the experience he needs, Jorgensen developing nicely and Petrovic getting the chance at Chelsea he deserves. 

I don’t feel Petrovic is a title winning keeper yet, but I feel he is good enough for our targets next season.

I don’t see the point in buying yet another keeper so we can play Trading 212 with all the keepers we have. Just be smart. 

The left back situation

We shouldn’t buy Hato. We don’t need his profile, especially with the existence of Marc Cucurella and Ishe Samuels-Smith. 

What we do need at left back is someone that can overlap and provide a good attacking threat to enable our left winger to act as an interior (especially seeing that most of our targets at LW seem to like this).

But, this being said, I don’t really know who we could actually get that is good at doing that and that is available for a reasonable price on the market. 

This leads me to believe that we are waiting for Quenda to arrive and fulfill this role, especially because realistically he is most suited to this.

Though this would completely change the scope of our future plans at the winger position, this is a story for a distant time. 

So no, don’t buy anyone and just hope Gusto can do the role well enough if we absolutely need someone to fulfill this role.

Besides, what’s the harm in that? It enables James and Josh Acheampong to play in their best positions.

Centre Back

We need to buy backup or competition for Wesley Fofana. 

Any business this summer needs to address the profile of a front footed, aggressive Centre Back. And if we don’t, then honestly I give up.

We simply can not go into next season with Fofana being the only defender of that profile. 

And don’t get me wrong, this is not an attack on Fofana. I rate this guy as one of the best in the world in his position and role when he is fit and firing.

But, he just can’t remain fit and firing long enough to justify us relying on him the way he probably wants us to. 

We simply have to try and get someone that can play with him and share minutes. 

This is why I am so, so concerned over the targets of Guehi and Branthwaite. 

Again, they’re good players but they are fundamentally not what we need!

I see the appeal, but they’re fine only if we get what we need as well. I’m completely fine with those targets if we offload some defenders we have at the club like Tosin, Chalobah, Disasi and loan out Anselmino BUT we simply can’t not get someone to help Fofana and provide that profile in our backline. 

Midfield and Right Back are… fine

With the addition of Essugo and Andrey Santos to the midfield, I wouldn’t say we’re in need of anything in our midfield.

I’ve spoken about the composition of our squad before so I won’t go into it too much, but the idea of having five midfielders that can do whatever we need depending on game and game-state is a very nice one and we should be heading towards that if we don’t do anything silly in the transfer window. 

Lesley Ugochukwu should go on loan though and not be sold as he remains a top talent that just needs experience. 

The right back position is also in safe hands with James, Gusto and Josh. I don’t need to say much more. 

The wingers

It seems that the club are happy with what we have at right wing, and especially with what is coming in (Estevao) and that makes sense. 

It is what is going on at left wing that is more interesting to discuss.

Despite Noni’s renaissance at left wing, it is still not a long term solution and with the situation surrounding Jadon Sancho still unclear, we could be needing two left wingers in the summer. 

As the targets still remain relatively unclear, I won’t talk about anyone specifically but more about the profile I feel that we need in this position. 

I still feel that we should be keeping Sancho as it allows us to hone in more specifically on a profile of winger that is more output focused and is effectively the counter balance to what Sancho provides.

Keeping Sancho also effectively means we will have five wingers at the club with most being able to operate on both sides in the event of needs must (like injuries or specific tactical situations in tough games). 

There is also the possibility that Palmer or someone like Rogers can operate in off the wings… which leads me nicely into….

The number 10’s

Palmer needs help. He’s played too much and is obviously fatigued and low on confidence.

It is in fact an amazing testament to his sheer raw natural talent that he has remained relatively impressive on the statistical creativity scale, creating chances for his teammates. 

The answer to this, consistent with Chelsea’s briefed targets, appears to be players that can play on the wing and drift inside to operate as a 10. 

Morgan Rogers and Xavi Simons are two names that have been floating as players that can fulfill these roles and they’re definitely good names to be linked with.

Again, I feel as though these are players that you can only sign with Champions League football and this is certainly something that the club is banking on. 

With the likely sales of Nkunku, Felix and Dewsbury-Hall, it is extremely likely we will be getting someone of the sort, whether it be Rogers/Simons or someone else.

It could even be Paez, who is joining Chelsea in the summer, though he is expected to depart on loan for experience and development (I think this is the right choice). 

But ultimately, if we do sell the players named then I do feel as though we should be buying someone like Rogers and Simons as it helps the 10 position, helps Palmer and helps our winger depth at the left flank. 

Striker – the big one

It goes without saying that we absolutely need to buy a striker that can just kick the ball in the net. It is an absolute necessity that we buy a striker.

Whether it is two because we sell Jackson, or just one because we keep trust that Jackson can inevitably become good in the future, we have to get a striker.

The signing of Hugo Ekitike only makes sense if Jackson is to be sold, and we buy another more box dominant striker on top of him.

If we keep Jackson, it makes no sense to buy Hugo as we’d just be stacking the same profile of striker and not addressing the desperate need for a box dominant striker that would aid us massively in breaking down low blocks and exploiting the strengths of the wingers we do have at the club. 

Anything short of buying a striker is a failure. But that being said, I appreciate the reluctance of the club to jump head first into a high risk transfer. 

Delap clearly wants to live up North. Osimhen is more than happy to jet off to Saudi Arabia instead of taking a wage cut to play in the Premier League, not to mention his social media relationships with fans.

So, I can understand the club doing due diligence on these players, Garnacho too. 

The club simply has to get it right in this position this summer. Viktor Gyokeres could prove to be a cost effective transfer in comparison to his absurd numbers he has been putting up over the last few years.

How could we line up next season?

I’ve made a few iterations, with the above being one without name dropping and incorporating mostly what we already have at our disposal. 

I do see us playing, long term, a variety of formations from 3-2-5, 3-3-4, 3-1-6 to even 4-1-5’s or 4-3-3’s. 

It’s another reason I do not mind Maresca staying another season – he’s nicely flexible tactically. 

Ultimately, if we were lining up in Maresca’s traditional 3-2-5 and assume we make no sales or signings other than what’s already confirmed, this is likely our best lineup. 

Another variation of this would be below, though I am not too fond of Colwill at LCB. 

Now, I will name drop some targets just to show what we could potentially look like next season.

I would say that, in my opinion, none of these setups are exactly ideal and Maresca will probably have to deviate from his core philosophy of wingers holding width.

But, I have to work with current links and ultimately what I do believe is that we are seriously only three or four signings away from being a really really good team. 

We just have to get them right, and if we’re honest? It’s do or die for this project.