Two things to say about this:

Firstly, as I understand it, Chelsea have 29 players on their books and only 25 can be in the prem squad and the champions league squad. Four players will get no game time at all.

Secondly, unrelated, it is important to remember (and no one seems to get this) that you have to actually sell a player to make a profit. We've only sold AWB in recent years. The young players we have and are developing can walk away at the end of their contracts and we get nothing whilst they get a lovely signing on fee. We also don't appear to do a good job (well any job) at extending players contracts and continually leave things late, too late.

So the model everyone is going on about, that works for the Brightons and Brentfords of the world is not a guaranteed money spinner for us, even if we manage to find those elusive young prospects.

Jsut out of interest, who are you referring to?

I'm sure there were a couple of mid-season transfer extensions in the Hodgson era - but can't remember names, I'm afraid.

Currently, though, we are going through a transitioning phase in which we are off-loading players who are getting past/have gone past their sell-by date.

I suspect the club have been in talks with Zaha prior to this season but the fact is - he wants a big club so he can get the chance to play in Europe and win things before he retires. He'll only accept the deal on the table if he doesn't get a suitable offer from such a club.

As for Eze, is he important enough for us to offer him a contract now? He's been very hit and miss this season and, of course, last season he was injured. Had he hit the ground running and shown consistent form this season - then, yes, I would have hoped we'd be negotiating a new contract with him now (for all we know we may already be doing so). However, he needs to up his game IMHO.

Our other newer arrivals are on contracts expiring in 20026 or 2027 so no need yet to be offering extensions.

As for players whose contracts expire this summer, they are basically players who have hit the age of 30 and are unlikely to get more than a one year extension if the club want to keep them. It will be interesting to see if any of them get offers before the end of the season.

Edited by doombear (03 Feb 2023 11.20am)

The only extension i know for sure, is Guaita, But Olise and Guehi´s Wages have gone up, but not Eze who is the second lowest payed player, if you believe Spotrac

That's not going to be an option from this coming Summer's window as UEFA have said they will close the loophole Chelsea have been using and limit the payment spread to a maximum of 5 years - you can still have 8 year contracts but you will only be able to spread the cost over a maximum of 5.

IMO this is a good thing since although the sums Chelsea paid for players were eye-wateringly inflated, come the summer, it won't be so easy for clubs to pay those inflated prices with the 5 year amortisation limit.