Who To Pick From Chelsea

Drafting from Chelsea

Thirty-eight players. That is the biggest squad in the game, and it is not close; Fulham get by on twenty-three. The size of it is both the argument for drafting Chelsea and the argument against. Nine of those thirty-eight are elite, which sounds handsome until you set it beside Manchester City's twenty and do the division: fewer than one spin in four lands you a genuine star here.

Cole Palmer at 90 is the draw, and the attacking midfield behind him is the one group the wheel struggles to embarrass you with, 88 across two with Morgan Rogers on 86. It is not the best group in the league, mind, that is City's strikers at 92, but it is the safest thing Chelsea own. Beneath it sit ten points of spread, and the drop has an address: three goalkeepers averaging 77, the weakest group at the club and an odd thing to find at a side of this expense. Moisés Caicedo at 86 and Enzo Fernández at 85 mean the middle of the pitch looks after itself. The sticks do not. Twelve Englishmen and five Frenchmen give you a national spine to build around if that is your game.

If a legend spin comes up, take Didier Drogba at 97. The reasoning is not sentiment. Chelsea's forward line peaks at João Pedro on 84, six points below Palmer and a world away from Erling Haaland's 96 or Alexander Isak's 92, so the centre-forward slot is where a Chelsea eleven quietly loses its games. Frank Lampard matches Drogba at 97, but Palmer, Rogers, Caicedo and Fernández already crowd that part of the pitch. Fix the nine, not the eight.