FANS are convinced Chelsea are playing real-life Football Manager after the club’s bloated squad list went viral.
Owners Todd Boehly and Behdad Egbali have pursued an aggressive strategy of signing young players with high potential since taking the club over in May 2022.
That’s seen them spend over £1billion in transfer fees in a two year period.
And while there have been some gems such as Cole Palmer signed along the way, it has left them with a very bloated squad going into this season.
Fans on social media were stunned to see the amount of players in the squad when it was simply written out – with the tally now standing at 45 PLAYERS.
The club are desperately trying to trim the squad ahead of the new season, with some players listed in the squad seemingly on the chopping block or on their way out.
Among those is Conor Gallagher, who looks set to complete a £34million move to Atletico Madrid soon.
Fellow academy graduate Trevoh Chalobah also appears on the list, but he has been frozen out of the squad under Enzo Maresca as the Blues look to find a transfer for him.
And the perpetually loaned Romelu Lukaku appears in the list, despite not playing a part in Chelsea’s pre-season and looking set to join up with Antonio Conte again at Napoli.
Reacting to the brimming squad on social media, one fan said: “I heard they’re adding a second story to the dressing room.”
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Another said: “Quick glance at this and I thought this was just the players in the big 5 leagues on fbref, do they know it’s football not American football?
”
A third replied: “List keeps growing. Feel bad for some of these players who won’t even have much playing time.”
While a fourth said: “They are signing Omorodion, I’m sure they are playing Football manager for sure!!!”
On signing Atletico Madrid‘s Samu Omorodion, Chelsea have had their latest offer knocked back but a deal looks likely to happen once Gallagher joins Atletico.
Chelsea lost 2-1 to Real Madrid last night in their latest pre-season friendly with Enzo Maresca criticising his team’s defending – so their business might not be done yet in that area.
By Jack Rosser in Charlotte
ENZO MARESCA keeps reminding Chelsea fans that they are trying a lot of different things on this pre-season tour.
Defending does not appear to be one of them.
The new Blues boss knows this is very much a work in progress, but his players are going to have to do a lot of learning on the job – and fast.
Real Madrid ripped through them time and again on the break across a chaotic first half in Charlotte as Chelsea’s pre-season tour came to an end.
Five games, five cities and a whole lot of questions.
They have been taken apart by Celtic and Manchester City too while Stateside.
Maresca said: “Any team wants to do something, they want to win games and compete.
“They have to work in the right way defensively. It’s difficult when you concede one goal or two, always starting behind.
“Today, again, for the first five minutes, we had two clear chances. When you concede and you are 1-0 behind, 2-0 behind, it becomes difficult.
“But overall, in terms of the things we are doing, we are improving and I’m quite happy.”
There have been positives, of course. Romeo Lavia looks fantastic, Noni Madueke has been confident and effective while a host of players who spent last season injured have a bank of minutes in the tank.
The Chelsea ownership know this is going to take time, they are completely overhauling the playing style at Stamford Bridge. But on this evidence the early weeks of the season could be hard to watch.
Players still look confused and unsure of their roles when defending while chances hardly flowed against the Champions League winners – who were without a host of their big names.
Vinicius Jr was there, however, and tormented the Chelsea defenders – especially in the first half.
Maresca has already moaned about how his players defend with a high line and they were all over the place again in North Carolina.
Dani Ceballos grabbed the first, bundled in at the far post after a break was messily defended by Chelsea.
Vinicius opened the Blues up again with a fine ball in behind to setup the second. His pass was collected by Brahim Diaz who rounded new goalkeeper Filip Jorgensen and finished from an impressively tight angle.
Chelsea were much improved defensively after the break, though there was a slight feeling that Madrid were easing their way to the end of their tour.
Lessons are being slowly learned by Maresca’s new men – their second half improvement is an example of that – but the defending especially is something ingrained which the new boss is desperate to cut out.
The fact his side did not collapse to fall four down, as they did against Celtic and Manchester City, will have pleased Maresca, though that is fairly slim pickings with the opening game against the champions less than two weeks away.
