Chelsea’s veteran defender Thiago Silva has suggested that the club’s squad size contributes to the club’s woeful performance in the 2022-2023 season.
The 38-year-old Brazilian football icon who has until June 30, 2024, before his contract expires, revealed that Chelsea have had to expand the club’s locker room to make room for the large squad.
Hence, Thiago Silva urged the club to sit back and re-strategize so that the club won’t fall into the same performance crisis next season.
Chelsea’s limited chances of salvaging a disastrous season were dashed on Tuesday night as they lost 4-0 on aggregate to Real Madrid in the Champions League quarterfinals.
On the other hand, Chelsea are currently 11th in the Premier League standings and 17 points behind the top four.
Despite spending more than £600 million on signing players since Todd Boehly’s takeover, they now face a season outside of Europe’s top league, leaving them with little to play for in their last seven games.
After Real Madrid knocked out Chelsea from the Champions League, Silva acknowledged that their overly large squad is not helping the situation at Stamford Bridge.
He said, “I think we’ve already taken the first step. It was a mistake, but it’s happened. Now we’ve got to take a step back and see what we did wrong.
“There’s no point looking at the coach and saying, ‘It’s this guy or that guy’s fault’ if we don’t step up to the plate.
“The club is going through a tough patch, it was all a bit vague at the beginning, then there was a change of ownership, and many players came in. We even had to extend the dressing room as it wasn’t big enough for all the players.
“A positive is that we’ve got great players in the squad. On the flip side, someone is always going to be annoyed or feel down because not everyone can play. The coach can only pick 11 players yet there are 30-odd here. That’s an issue, isn’t it?
“Some players are out of favour. Auba (Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang) came in as a starter but he’s not in the Champions League squad as there was a limit of three, and we made eight signings in January.
“We’ve got to take stock and put together a plan for next season so that we don’t make the same mistakes.”
