Chelsea could soon be joined in Hong Kong by Jordan Henderson and Danny Welbeck, senior players added to the squad to ensure that new manager Xabi Alonso has some experience to draw upon.
The Blues have been busy in the transfer market since the end of the World Cup. Henderson and Welbeck are following Marco Palestra, Emmanuel Emegha and British transfer record signing Morgan Rogers as new signings in a packed squad.
One item of business Alonso will address sooner rather than later is deciding on a squad that meets the requirements of the Premier League for the 2026-27 season.
Which Chelsea players could miss out this season?
Chelsea will not be involved in European competition and the Premier League will be Alonso’s bread and butter, presenting the Blues with a significant squad-whittling challenge.
They will submit their 25-man squad list to the Premier League at the end of the transfer window and it will fulfil the usual requirements.
The squad will include a maximum of 25 players, of which at least eight will fulfil the Premier League’s Home Grown Player (HGP) criteria:
“A player who irrespective of nationality or age, has been registered with any club affiliated to the Football Association or the Football Association of Wales for… three entire seasons, or 36 months, before his 21st birthday (or the end of the season during which he turns 21).”
Players born after the start of 2005 will be classified as under-21s and do not have to be included on the squad list but can be used in Premier League matches.
Chelsea’s HGP submissions last summer were Tosin Adarabioyo, Trevoh Chalobah, Liam Delap, Reece James, Joao Pedro, Robert Sanchez, Cole Palmer, Levi Colwill and Raheem Sterling.
The players eligible as HGP this season are: Adarabioyo, Chalobah, Delap, James, Pedro, Sanchez, Palmer, Colwill, Rogers, Welbeck, Henderson and Teddy Sharman-Lowe – in other words, that criterion will not be an issue.
Chelsea saw the need to add two players over the age of 35 precisely because so many of their first team and fringe players are eligible as under-21s. The big benefit of that in terms of squad management is that there are very few players at risk of missing out and even fewer likely to be at the club long enough for it to matter.
The introduction of Mike Penders puts goalkeeper Filip Jorgensen at risk although he is Strasbourg-bound, but creates a space for someone else; Penders is 20.
Liam Delap, not needed to meet HGP criteria, has only been at Chelsea for a year but already looks surplus to requirements. The striker scored just once in the Premier League last season and appears more likely to be named in some squad other than Chelsea’s by the end of the transfer window.
The same is true of Senegal striker Nicolas Jackson, who spent 2025-26 on loan at Bayern Munich and is widely reported to be a target for Aston Villa. On paper, he would currently be on the outside of Chelsea’s senior squad looking in.
The fourth and final squad member who will miss out for rather obvious reasons is Ukrainian winger Mykhailo Mudryk, whose four-year ban for failing a drug test still has two seasons left to run.
With more than a month left of the summer transfer window, Alonso won’t yet have made all his decisions. Chelsea are likely to make more signings and almost certain to let a few players leave.
Until that’s settled, it’s all up for grabs.