26/27 Chelsea Squad Pick

Six weeks we've been promising this one. Here it is.

With Xabi Alonso through the door and the World Cup kicking off, Chris and Joe sat down to do the job every Chelsea fan secretly loves — build the 26/27 squad, position by position. No messing about with keep-sell-loan. Just a straight answer: who stays, who goes, and who Chelsea need to sign.

The whole thing is built around the formation everyone expects Alonso to bring with him from Leverkusen — a back three, wing-backs, a double pivot, and two number tens behind the striker. Chelsea drifted towards it at the back end of last season for a reason. So that's the blueprint. Here's the squad.

Goalkeeper: time for the Petr Čech moment

Remember when Čech arrived and nobody handed him the gloves — he took them off Carlo Cudicini that opening day against United? Same energy. Bring Mike Penders properly into the building, tell Robert Sánchez the No.1 shirt is up for grabs, and let them fight for it through pre-season.

Sánchez isn't perfect — there's a rookie error in him every few games — but he's steady, he knows the place, and he's grown a thick skin. Give Penders a run of cup games, don't torch Sánchez's confidence, and if the kid wins the shirt on merit, hand it over. Filip Jörgensen makes way. Kicking that can down the road again helps nobody.

The three: Sánchez, Penders, and a third who'll never play.

Centre-back: the one position you have to get right

A back three changes the brief. You want a calm ball-player through the middle — Levi Colwill, obviously — and two mobile, physical defenders either side. Tosin gives you the left-sided option. Josh Acheampong is tailor-made for the right of a three, and reassuringly he turned up on the list of players Alonso reportedly won't sell. Now he just needs minutes. Trevoh Chalobah stays as a useful body.

But here's the non-negotiable: Chelsea need one ready-made starter. Someone who walks in and plays 35 Premier League games without blinking. Height, aggression, a bit of nasty — we can't keep getting bullied. Manuel Akanji's release looks like it's been triggered at City, and he'd be perfect. Koni De Winter, Jan Paul van Hecke at Brighton, Maxence Lacroix at Palace — all in the conversation. You don't need four new centre-backs. You need one good one, and a clear-out of the fringe.

Funny how much better the squad looks the moment you take a few names out of it.

Wing-back: the trickiest call of the lot

Start with the obvious. Reece James, on his day, is one of the best right wing-backs going — and watching him stroke passes around for England this week was a joy. People who know football know he's world-class. People who don't will tell you he's "not as good as Trent." (He is.) The only catch is he could just as easily end up at right centre-back — exactly the kind of flexibility Alonso loves.

Then the bold one. We're keeping Pedro Neto. Stay with us. A simpler remit — get up and down, keep it uncomplicated — could unlock him the way the wing-back role unlocked Victor Moses under Conte. Marc Cucurella looks Spain-bound. Quenda arrives off the big Sporting fee. Barco — effectively a done deal from Strasbourg — slots in on the left. And the specialist signing? Álvaro Grimaldo. Alonso knows him inside out from Leverkusen. He's 31, but not every signing can cost £75m. Sometimes you just need a Grimaldo.

The Gusto question

Should Malo Gusto fit that right wing-back role? On paper, maybe. In practice, Joe's verdict was rather more direct. There's a raw dislike there — the sense that the moment things go wrong, Gusto ducks out the door, where a Neto or a Hatto would run all day for you. Whatever you make of it, there's a clear case to cash in this summer, when Chelsea need to raise money anyway.

Midfield: steady — or serious?

The double pivot picks itself at the top: Moisés Caicedo, then Andrey Santos, then Roméo Lavia. We're not ready to write Lavia off — not yet. And Caicedo's dip last season had everything to do with the collapse around him; ask anyone to run for 90 minutes a week while teammates down tools and see how they look. On his day he's right there with Declan Rice.

The real question is ambition. You can sign a Granit Xhaka type — experienced, sensible, knows his job. Or you make the statement call and chase Eduardo Camavinga out of a chaotic Real Madrid, especially if Enzo Fernández heads the other way. Camavinga's 23 and has started 40-plus games a season for five years. If you want back into the Champions League fast — and Chelsea need to, because the club will be burning money — that's the level you reach for.

Attack: get the best out of Cole

Two tens behind the striker. Cole Palmer in the right pocket — and job one for Alonso is a proper summer's rest doing Cole the world of good. Estêvão alongside him: the player we've waited two or three years to see make the jump, and the lad who was fishing the ball out of the net at 3-0 down at Everton, dragging teammates forward. That's the one.

Jamie Gittens stays. Enzo Fernández stays too — we just don't think Chelsea will get their price, Real Madrid links or not. (And yes, Mourinho's actually back at the Bernabéu. Welcome back, big man. All is forgiven.)

The shopping-list name is a right-footed, left-sided forward. Morgan Rogers, a Marcus Rashford loan, even a Rafael Leão punt — Joe loves him, and Joe also can't see us landing him in a month of Sundays. But the smart, harmonious signing? Jarrod Bowen. Five straight seasons of double-figure goals, the leadership we've been crying out for, and roughly half the price of the maverick options. A left-footer who plays off the right — a bit of versatility never hurt anyone.

Striker: bring Jackson home

Three of them. João Pedro leads it. Then the easy one — Nicolas Jackson, back from his Bayern loan. We missed him. Cole missed him. He's all action: misses a few, but finishes the one-on-ones and the first-time balls without thinking. Play him last season and we'd have had the Champions League — and we mean the Champions League, not just Europe. Emanuel Emegha, Strasbourg's captain, comes in as the big No.3. Marc Guiu moves on for minutes elsewhere.

The verdict

Nine new faces in the group — but only five of them actual cash signings, one of which (Barco) is basically done. The rest are returns and players already at the club. And the headline? The squad looks stronger before you've signed a soul, simply by taking the right names out.

Lock the door, stop conceding daft goals, trust the best manager we could have got — and this is a top-four squad. Maybe better. For the first time in a long while, picking it out loud, we actually believe it.

So tell us yours. Email hello@1905podcast.com with your 26/27 squad — we read and reply to every one.

Every little thing's gonna be alright. Up the Chels.