“Four players for one place” – Mauricio Pochettino explains the squad mess he’s dealing with which is making fans upset | OneFootball

Chelsea fans are largely being very positive about this preseason so far. We’ve had two wins and a draw, and a lot of the new faces look to be settling in very quickly. Mauricio Pochettino is getting a chance to look at most of his squad, and the mood has improved rapidly already.

Not everything is without issue however. The logjam at left back is causing some consternation amongst fans, and Pochettino even ended up addressing it himself.

Marc Cucurella played from the start against Newcastle, with Ben Chilwell on in the second half to replace him. That meant academy gem Lewis Hall was once again left with a big fat 0 in minutes played.

Pochettino explained this as the result of an unbalanced squad:

“At the moment he [Cucurella] is okay, he is good. All of the players start from zero. It’s about competing. We have him and Chilly also, and they need to compete for this position. Of course Ian, and Lewis, we have four players that play the same position,” Pochettino said in quotes picked up by Football London.

“That is the balance we were talking about before. We need to add players as maybe in another position we miss some players and in that position we have four and sometimes the squad is unbalanced. We need to build a balanced squad to have the possibility to compete for a position but not have players who are going to be the third or fourth option to play and it is going to be impossible for one position, for four players to play for one place.”

He’s right, and what fans are dreading is the sight of academy talent Hall being forced out just to accommodate the sunk cost fallacy white elephant that is Cucurella. Our error in signing him last summer could be compounded to a ridiculous degree if his presence ends up costing us Hall’s future.