Chelsea in chaos as Pochettino has NO IDEA who will be on plane to pre-season tour in 4 days with 25 stars already axed
CHELSEA fly to the USA on Monday to herald the new era under Mauricio Pochettino.
But with just four days to go until their summer tour departure, there remains no official plane passenger list — such is the state of flux among the squad.
The team that turns out for the first match against League Two Wrexham in North Carolina on Wednesday will be unrecognisable from that which finished a wholly underwhelming season at home to Newcastle barely seven weeks ago.
Eight of the matchday squad from that uninspiring 1-1 draw on May 28 have gone.
Captain Cesar Azpilicueta, Champions League final goalscorer Kai Havertz, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Edouard Mendy, Kalidou Koulibaly, Mateo Kovacic, Christian Pulisic and Joao Felix are now just memories, as is poster boy Mason Mount.
After Pulisic completed his £20million switch to AC Milan – that is £210m in sales, a saving of £91m in wages and some of football’s biggest names out of the door.
Do not forgot N’Golo Kante has also gone, joining the Saudi rush with his contract up. There are others in limbo at Stamford Bridge awaiting new clubs like awkward teens lingering by the radiators waiting to be asked for a slow dance at a youth club disco.
Romelu Lukaku, Hakim Ziyech, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Malang Sarr are clearly surplus stock at Chelsea.
Midfielder Conor Gallagher is wanted by Tottenham, having already turned down a transfer to Everton. But unless a deal for Moises Caicedo gets done he may well stay.
Chelsea’s squad appears light in central midfield, with Enzo Fernandez, Gallagher and rookie Carney Chukwuemeka — who has made just four Premier League starts — the only three options available to Poch.
If a move is made for defender Trevoh Chalobah at the right price a deal could be done — but nobody is pushing him away.
It is a different story for Ethan Ampadu, however. He is another home-grown player, like Mount and Loftus-Cheek, who will be better served elsewhere.
But as it stands they all remain on the payroll and there could be a difficult moment come Monday when the coach arrives at the training ground to take Pochettino and his rapidly changing squad to the US.
How do you tell a £97.5m striker like Lukaku there is no seat on the bus?
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Chelsea and the Belgian are hoping it does not come to that. Both parties are working hard to get a deal done that avoids a tense stand-off next week.
Whether it be Juventus, Saudi side Al-Hilal or Inter Milan — yet to produce a credible bid according to Chelsea sources — it is highly unlikely Lukaku will be heading to the States for the five-game pre-season trip.
Instead, Pochettino will use the 15-day excursion to get to know the new wave of players replacing the familiar faces now gone.
Fernandez, Mykhailo Mudryk, Noni Madueke, Malo Gusto, Christopher Nkunku, Nicolas Jackson, Andrey Santos, Benoit Badiashile, Levi Colwill and Chukwuemeka.
With the exception of World Cup winner Fernandez, these are the raw, relatively untried young men Chelsea are relying on to capture the fans’ imaginations for their promotional tour Stateside and generate publicity and cash to fund the next transfer spree.
It is a hard sell to an American public poised to welcome Lionel Messi to the MLS with David Beckham’s Inter Miami.
Right-back Gusto, forward Nkunku, striker Jackson and midfielder Santos are no doubt highly skilled young players with great futures. They are also yet to experience the headrush of English football.
Madueke and Colwill won the Under-21 Euros with England only at the weekend.
Defender Colwill enjoyed a cracking season on loan at Brighton to the extent that they want to buy him outright.
But the emerging centre-half is just 20 and has yet to fully experience the incessant demands to be at it like a hungry Rottweiler every day.
That is what departing skipper Azpilicueta was like. He did not miss a training session for three years. Poch’s job is turning eager young recruits into exactly that kind of player in the shortest time possible.
Like an army-drill sergeant putting a platoon of squaddies through basic training in six weeks ready for war.
The Argentine says he loves a risk, relishes the gamble of seeing if he can polish his boys up in time to at least put up a fight against Liverpool in the first Premier League game of the season on August 13.
That will be precisely 77 days since Chelsea needed an own goal from Newcastle’s Kieran Trippier to cancel out an Anthony Gordon strike — with the Toon Army in full voice celebrating their return to the Champions League after 20 years.
Pochettino can be perversely relieved that he will not have the distraction of European football this coming year as he bashes his players into shape.
But even he admits there can be no excuses for not hitting the ground running because that is simply not acceptable at Chelsea.
Even with a new manager and a virtually new squad there are still some old values at Stamford Bridge which prevail, piling extra pressure on Poch as he tries to settle in during a whirlwind of transfer ins and outs.
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