Chelsea have 41 senior players and just 25 days left in the transfer window to trim their squad, with new head coach Xabi Alonso keen to make significant cuts after the club missed out on European football for the coming season. Even reaching a more workable 25-man senior squad would require offloading 16 players by the start of September, a task made more urgent since Fifa has outlawed clubs stranding unwanted players in a so-called "bomb squad," as Chelsea previously did with Raheem Sterling and Axel Disasi.

The scale of the squad was evident when Chelsea named 21 substitutes, only five of them academy players, for a 1-0 defeat by Juventus in Hong Kong, despite Cole Palmer, Levi Colwill and Emmanuel Emegha all being unavailable through injury. Five players — Benoit Badiashile, Axel Disasi, Marc Guiu, David Datro Fofana and Caleb Wiley — are not training with the first team and are available for sale or loan, while seven others remain on post-World Cup holiday. Trevoh Chalobah is nearing a £31m move to Como and Filip Jorgensen is set for a loan at Strasbourg, as Chelsea also work on a £16.3m deal to sign defender Pep Chavarria from Rayo Vallecano.