Chelsea XI: How the Blues could line-up next season if sanctions remain

What will happen to Chelsea Football Club?

That is the question everyone is asking on Thursday after it was revealed that owner Roman Abramovich has been sanctioned.

The answer? Well, nobody really knows.

Chelsea can still play football.

But there are a lot of things they can no longer do such as sell tickets, merchandise or sign/sell players.

Quite how long Chelsea will be in this paralysed state is unknown.

While there are bigger things going on at the moment, Chelsea fans will only care about the performance of their side. And what state they will be in in the short term.

So, we’ve speculated over what Chelsea’s XI could look like next season.

With the inability to sign any players – or offer any player a new contract – it seems highly likely Antonio Rudiger, Andreas Christensen and Cesar Azpilicueta will leave in the summer with their current deals expiring.

While there may be no new incomings unless the situation changes, the club will benefit from being unable to sell players.

That’s because the likes of Connor Gallagher, Billy Gilmour, Armando Broja and Michy Batshuayi amongst others will return to the club from their loan spells.

It means the Blues could actually enter the 2022/23 season with a rather strong squad despite the uncertainty. Their strongest XI could look a little bit like this:

That’s certainly not a bad XI, is it?

Edouard Mendy – arguably the best goalkeeper in the world – is still between the sticks.

Of course, with Rudiger, Christensen and Azpilicueta leaving the club, Chelsea are going to be short defensively and it would be a struggle to play a back five. Fortunately, Thiago Silva has already signed a one-year contract extension and Trevor Chalobah has shown he’s capable of competing at this