The crazy numbers behind Chelsea’s summer of sales to come – Blues may need to sell half their squad

Chelsea face yet another incredibly busy summer in terms of selling players after they missed out on European football. 

There’s a line of reasoning going around right now that Chelsea missing out on any form of European football is actually a good thing, because missing all those midweek games will give Xabi Alonso more time on the training pitch and help the players stay fresh.

That’s true – but it also misses some of the big downsides of not playing any European football. Apart from the horrific financial implications, there are also major squad building questions.

Chelsea set to half their squad size as fixture list shrinks

As Kieran Doyle pointed out, they have 31 players who played first team minutes this season, plus 6 senior players on loan and 9 academy players on loan. All 46 of them will be coming back for preaseason.

Assuming we want two players per position and a third goalkeeper, that means we want 23 players out of that 46. 23 outgoing moves will have to be sorted out this summer.

And that’s before you even consider we’re going to want to buy players too. It’s going to be a bloodbath, and it will be hard to get good value on so many deals.

Among those who could be sold is Andrey Santos, given the club could make a good profit on him.

One player who Chelsea won’t be selling is Joao Pedro, who is not for sale “at any price” according to Ben Jacobs.