The Blues first replaced Mauricio Pochettino with Enzo Maresca and then handed him a heavy transfer kitty to sign new players.
They have managed to strengthen all the positions in their squad and made big changes to the landscape of the club.
Not only a new management team and players have arried at the club, the deadwood has been offloaded.
The likes of Pedro Neto, Joao Felix, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and others have arrived but players like Romelu Lukaku, Conor Gallagher, Raheem Sterling, Armando Broja and more, who were surplus to requirements at the club, have been shown the exit door.
The Blues will be involved in the Conference League this season and they have made the controversial decision to not make Cole Palmer a part of their squad for the group stage.
Palmer is Chelsea’s best player by a mile, as shown last season as well as this season.
However, he has been dropped from the squad of the Conference League, showing that Chelsea feel they will be able to easily qualify even without their main man.
Football pundit Gabriel Agbonlahor has criticised the decision from Chelsea and their manager, claiming that they are disrespecting the competition and this is something they would not have done in the Champions League or the Europa League.
He said on talkSPORT:
“I think it’s disrespectful to the competition because they wouldn’t do that for the Europa League or the Champions League.
“They are looking at the Europa Conference League and are like, ‘We are Chelsea, we shouldn’t be in this. Let’s rest our players who may pick up knocks, especially as Lavia and Fofana have had injury problems.’”
The former Aston Villa star has a point, considering that Chelsea have a massive squad with a number of attacking options at Maresca’s disposal.
Chelsea have disrespected the competition with their decision
They have made an unusual decision, something that will get unnecessary attention from the fans and the media.
They could have made Palmer a part of their squad and left him on the bench and only used him in desperate situations.
There is no doubt about the quality of Chelsea and it is far superior for a team playing in the Conference League.
They will be the favourites of that competition but they will be making a mistake if they take this competition lightly.