How Chelsea’s latest decision in January will impact the future of three other players in the squad

It was confirmed this afternoon that Trevoh Chalobah’s loan spell at Crystal Palace has ended and he will now return to Chelsea for the remainder of the season to once again become an “important player” for his youth team.

An interesting move in itself, which also has huge knock-on effects for the other defenders currently in the squad.

As Ben Jacobs pointed out in his tweet immediately after the move, it frees up Axel Disasi, who must be sold this month. He points out that Newcastle and Juventus are potentially interested, and we’ve heard reports this morning that Atalanta and Bayer Leverkusen are also potentially in the mix.

Every Disasi sale can now take place, all systems are running.

Chelsea are preparing for a back four

While Benoit Badiashile and Wesley Fofana are still out, we are supporting Trevoh, who will soon join the team alongside Levi Colwill. The fact that we don’t have a game until next Monday means a great opportunity for Trevoh to get some time training with his new old teammates. I wonder if Chelsea now regret not taking him on the pre-season tour? It would certainly make integration a lot easier now…

This is bad news for Josh Acheampong, who has started our last two league games at centre-back but was taken off yesterday after some difficulties. However, he should get opportunities in our rotating cup teams at both right-back and centre-back.

Tosin has impressed at times, but the fact that he was picked for Acheampong at all shows that Maresca doesn’t love him. We expect Chalobah to quickly earn his place in the team ahead of Tosin – which is exactly why we said we should have stuck with the academy product instead of signing the former Fulham defender in the first place.