Andrey Santos the only returning loanee added to Chelsea squad for Club World Cup

Preparations are now underway for the Club World Cup, which for us begins on Monday with a match against LAFC in Atlanta, with those players not involved on international duty returning from holidays and back to training at Cobham.

The squad will fly out to the USA only on Friday, and it’s only then that we will know exactly who all will be traveling — at least for the group stage; we will get to make changes to the squad if (when) we get to the knockout stages.

But it sounds like we will be making minimal changes to the squad, and according to The Telegraph, only Andrey Santos will be added from among those who finished last season out on loan. So that means the likes of João Félix, Renato Veiga, Axel Disasi, Raheem Sterling, Ben Chilwell, Armando Broja, Alfie Gilchrist, and many others will not be involved. While part of that decision is surely to try to keep the squad size manageable, part of that is also a judgement on their futures (thus the inclusion of Santos).

Perhaps most notably, Đorđe Petrović is expected to be left out as well, despite some rumors (hope?) that he will get a proper shot at the Chelsea goalkeeper job for next season. Young Mike Penders is set to make up our numbers after the exit of Marcus Bettinelli. Penders, like fellow new signings Liam Delap, Dário Essugo, and Mamadou Sarr, and unlike most of our loanees, is set to travel.

One new signing who is not expected to join is Kendry Páez, who’s apparently already earmarked for a Strasbourg loan.

But we’ll have to wait and see what the final list looks like on Friday.