Find a manager and cull the squad: What it will take to fix Chelsea after horror season

“I think the first step has been made – an incorrect step, but it has been made,” Silva, 38, said after Chelsea were eliminated from the Champions League on Tuesday. “We need to stop and put a strategy in place, otherwise next season we could make the same mistake.”

Despite being 17 points off the top four and almost certainly out of European competition next season, caretaker coach Frank Lampard says they will use the final seven games of the season to “set the building blocks of where we want to get to”. Here, The Times analyses the areas that must be addressed:

Search for a manager

Identifying – and perhaps convincing – a new head coach to come and salvage the situation should be priority number one. Co-sporting directors Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley have been narrowing down the shortlist of candidates this week, removing Luis Enrique and Sporting Lisbon’s Ruben Amorim. Chelsea insist there is no favourite in the shortlist but some sources at Stamford Bridge believe it is inevitable that Julian Nagelsmann is offered the role.

The job is far bigger than two years ago when Thomas Tuchel arrived and won the Champions League within four months, but the talent within the squad means another immediate transformation is possible. Spending usually dictates league positions, and so Chelsea’s climb should be inevitable. How high will depend on who they bring into the dugout. Chelsea are in need of a decisive coach with elite tactical capabilities and an aura that will inspire.

At RB Leipzig, where Nagelsmann worked alongside Stewart and technical director Christopher Vivell, the young German coach drilled his players into being capable of playing various formations, including a back three and back four, as well as a target man up front or no centre forward. Mauricio Pochettino has also been contacted over the job, having been interviewed in the past, but there is a worry at Chelsea over his association with their rivals Tottenham Hotspur.

Trim squad

Silva highlighted the size of the first-team squad as a major issue, indicating the four men who have sat in the dugout – Tuchel, Graham Potter, Bruno Saltor and Lampard – were given little chance of success. Eight January signings meant a squad of 31 players for Potter, and now Lampard, who were subsequently forced to leave out 11 players for each match day. Potter regularly looked uncomfortable in post-match press conferences when asked by one individual why he left out each player after every match.

Chelsea were so intent on boosting the squad in January that they did not consider outgoings until the final five days of the month. Hakim Ziyech spent two days in France waiting for his move to Paris Saint-Germain to be finalised but the deal collapsed when Chelsea failed to submit the paperwork on time. Caused by a technological glitch, the club said.

Ziyech is one of the players almost certain to leave this summer and Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang is also on that list. Chelsea must be decisive on the shape of their squad in the coming weeks, a challenging task without a permanent head coach in place. Uncertainty already surrounds the futures of Mason Mount, Mateo Kovacic, Christian Pulisic, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Cesar Azpilicueta, whose contracts expire next year; N’Golo Kante’s ends this summer. Chelsea’s new hierarchy have introduced a new policy for deals that enter the final two years: sign or sell.

Finances

The only positive for Chelsea of finishing outside the Premier League’s top seven is that they will not be under Uefa’s jurisdiction for Financial Fair Play (FFP) next season. Last year, Uefa said Chelsea were among the clubs they were closely monitoring for FFP breaches, which was before the record pounds 323 million spent during the January transfer window.

Uefa rules are stricter than the Premier League’s but Chelsea will still need to raise a lot of cash after reporting large losses for a second successive season. The club recorded a loss of pounds 121 million last season, after a pounds 153.4 million loss for the previous campaign. The Premier League allows maximum losses of pounds 105 million over a rolling three-year period. Player sales will be a big source of income, especially those with a homegrown status such as Mount, Conor Gallagher and Trevoh Chalobah.

Chelsea’s owners have spent about pounds 600 million on signings over the past two transfer windows but long contracts have spread the cost through a process of amortisation. Chelsea have also got clauses in some deals that lowers wages by about 30 per cent in the event of failure to qualify for the Champions League.

Scoring goals

Despite the pounds 600 million splurge, there was an obvious omission in Chelsea’s transfer recruitment – the failure to sign a striker. Exiting the Champions League came with a familiar story in which the toothless west London club were unable to take their chances. They are on a run of one goal in 540 minutes, and in the Premier League only five teams have recorded fewer goals this season.

The absence of an incoming striker in January can partly be explained by Christopher Nkunku’s impending arrival from RB Leipzig in the summer, after Chelsea agreed a deal with the German club last year. Nkunku has averaged a goal every other game for club and country this season and there are already high expectations in west London about the 25-year-old’s impact.

There is another expensive striker due at Stamford Bridge this summer. Romelu Lukaku, signed for pounds 100 million in 2021, is set to return to the club after a year at Inter Milan on loan having struggled in his first season back at Chelsea and fallen out with the hierarchy at the time. A return appeared impossible because of his relationship with Tuchel but a change in the dugout may alter the opinion of both the club and the Belgium striker. Chelsea also have the option to buy Tammy Abraham back from Roma this summer.

Originally published as Find a manager and cull the squad: What it will take to fix Chelsea after horror season