Chelsea can not entertain offers until the next manager decides who he needs

Chelsea are receiving inquiries for players in all positions and at all stages of their career. Before the Blues can even entertain a sale they must know which players their next manager will need for whatever he plans to do next season.

Part of Chelsea’s return to proper footballing normalcy next season, perhaps starting this week, will be having a manager who assesses the players at the club and develops an on-pitch organization, tactics and squads that suits them, optimizing their strengths and compensating for their weaknesses – as individuals and a squad – in line with his own overall approach to the game and the tactical management of individual opponents amid the scope of four competitions. Just in case you only started watching Chelsea FC or football as a whole via Chelsea last season, we gave a good overview of what managers actually, usually do.

Chelsea pretty well know who their next manager will be. But until he has a chance to run a few sessions with them, he will not know what he will do with the club next year. That means he and the club do not yet know who they will need to keep and who they can afford to sell.

In the last week, Everton have pushed more aggressively to make Kurt Zouma a permanent Toffee; Atletico Madrid upped their interest in Marcos Alonso, which became more interesting in their pursuit of Hector Bellerin for the right side; and a grab-bag of clubs have made the usual wild-ass offers for Willian.

Say what you want about any of those players. The not-yet-appointed manager has not had his say, so Chelsea cannot yet sell them.

Particularly with the transfer ban, Chelsea have to keep all their returning first-team squad simply to maintain numbers. No one is surplus to requirements yet.

Before the next manager can decide on his individualized plans for how each player will be part of the squad, he needs the raw numbers to sketch things out. If he has already started conceiving of formations using three centrebacks, the club cannot pull the rug out by selling the best centreback returning from loan (Zouma) or the best wing-back in the squad (Alonso). If, on the other hand, he is planning on having a variety of options at winger, the club cannot sell Willian, especially with Callum Hudson-Odoi still injured and Christian Pulisic a recurring injury risk.

Other rumours and offers will continue to come in as clubs test Chelsea’s resolve during this window. The Blues must politely decline, deferring any consideration until the end of July.

The Blues still have two weeks before preseason fitness testing starts, but they should not let their managerial interregnum extend unless they have very good reasons. The more time the next manager has to prepare before the season, the better his assessments and judgments will be during preseason. If the club want to make any sales before the buying clubs shift to other options or want to secure the top loans for other players, having a manager in place as as soon as possible will enable the club to get rolling on that business.

Chelsea have so far had a very smart summer in handling major personnel moves. They sold Eden Hazard for £130 million, and they negotiated Maurizio Sarri’s resignation so Juventus would pay Chelsea for the final year of his contract. The club have also hired Petr Cech, and other hires besides the manager are in the works.

There’s a strange competence about the front office this summer. They can continue that streak by holding off on any sales until the new manager submits his list of who he needs, who he can afford to lose and how he values anyone between those two poles.