It is not just the lavish spending of Todd Boehly that has gained attention at Chelsea this season. The new American owner has also been active with sales and allowing players to move on, something that plagued the previous regime.
Chelsea's old loan army is no longer as lavish with realistically only four players likely to be in with a real shout of first team football under Mauricio Pochettino next season. It is still expected that the Argentine will be taking over as the new head coach and attention has turned to his clearout for the summer.
Those stars include Levi Colwill, Romelu Lukaku, Andrey Santos and Malo Gusto. The latter two are only on loan having signed in January but sent back in an agreement upon joining. Callum Hudson-Odoi and Ethan Ampadu could make a case but are less likely.
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In previous years this list would have been exhaustive, now it is mainly just young players looking for first signs of men's football. It's a welcome change and one that will only help to streamline the club under Boehly's watch. However, the 32-man squad still presents major problems with arguements possible for the sale of 14 current first team members.
The value of these players is around £363m ($457.9m) according to Transfermarkt. Although not all of them would gather such costs, plus the loans of Joao Felix and Denis Zakaria that hold no true value for Chelsea, it shows the sheer volume of assets that the club hold.
Add in Hudson-Odoi and Lukaku and that rises to 16 potential sales, there's others that could be included too. The same cannot be said, on this scale, of previous squads but Thomas Tuchel's first summer needed more work - both ins and outs - than he ever got. There were 18 players sold or loaned last season and, as this season has shown, it could have been more.
Although neither Andreas Christensen or Antonio Rudiger would have been sold in an ideal world, their departures for free did signal the start of a new era and fresh way of working. How that actually transpired is yet to bear fruit. The incomings have been largely muddled in operation and the mass staff axing proved problematic.
Heading into a defining summer for Chelsea's immediate and long-term future, though, and some of the choices made will be beneficial. Whereas waiting out for baseline profit and a high price with big money flops or even underwhelming squad players became a point of great success for Marina Granovskaia, it also set Chelsea back.
Year-on-year they were unable to properly pitch sales to prospective clubs due to lack of top-level evidence that they warranted such a value. Ross Barkley and Danny Drinkwater, purchased for £35m ($44.1m) were let go for free. Since 2019, a select group of players that cost a combined £125.9m ($159.3m) were sold for just £8.2m ($10.4) with most of those let go for free.
Although some that left proved worthwhile additions even for the large fees - Willian and Pedro lead this category - there were others that gave very little back for their cost. Keeping them on the books only hampered the re-sale value and therefore stocked the options higher and made things worse.
Boehly, to his credit, has been tough on those that weren't signed under his remit and it has eased up some room on an already packed group. By allowing Romelu Lukaku to be loaned, Timo Werner to be sold for nearly half of what he was signed for, Marcos Alonso given away to Barcelona for cheap and finally Jorginho for £10m six-months before his contract was due to end.
Even with these deals there is still plenty more to do but they are a step in the right direction to clearing the club of its unwanted stars, something that will be high on the list of early tasks for Pochettino. Continue that path in the right line and not only will it clear Boehly of unwanted reminders of the past regime but it will also allow his potential new manager to start bending the squad to his will.
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