Adarabioyo and five more Chelsea transfers for Maresca to complete this summer

0, 12, 9, 9. That is the number of signings made by the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital in each of their four transfer windows in charge of Chelsea, made for the men’s first team.

Those windows have been overseen by three different managers. The fifth will be under the management of Enzo Maresca after he was appointed by the club on Monday afternoon following a week of talks with the former Leicester City boss.

Maresca will be, for some in the squad, the sixth head coach since the summer of 2022. In that time there has been a near-total overhaul of everything at the club. His arrival promises to bring yet more change again.

The 44-year-old’s style is far removed from that of his predecessor Mauricio Pochettino, and with that there will need to be changes to his squad. Although it has been compiled largely by the co-sporting directors of Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley, led by recruitment guru Joe Shields and overseen by the co-owners Boehly, Behdad Eghbali, and Jose E Feliciano, there are still gaps.

At left-back there are serious questions over who will take the team forward as first-choice due to the injury problems for Ben Chilwell, a likeliness that Ian Maatsen leaves for Borussia Dortmund permanently, and patchy performances of Marc Cucurella. That is far from the only area of concern or in need of addressing.

Despite letting Edouard Mendy and Kepa Arriazabalaga depart last summer with the arrival of Robert Sanchez and Djordje Petrovic, Chelsea are already looking at new options in goal. Kepa will return from his loan to leave an initial five senior goalkeepers for Maresca to manage – with Marcus Bettinelli the perennial third-choice.

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The club are eyeing up possible targets to be in Maresca’s ball-dominant system. They want a player able to effectively be another centre-back at times to allow for overloads elsewhere. The disjointed nature of recruitment at times has perhaps best been shown in the use of ‘keepers.

Elsewhere, depending on the future of Conor Gallagher, there could be the need for a new central midfielder. If the academy graduate departs then it will leave a big hole to be covered. Even with Romeo Lavia and Lesley Ugochukwu – possibly Andrey Santos and Cesare Casadei – in a position to play more next year it will be a big step-up and may leave Maresca keen on alternatives from elsewhere.

The attack also looks stacked with options currently but there is a question over the future of Raheem Sterling, even if football.london understands that the player is happy at Chelsea. Michael Olise and Benjamin Sesko are just two of the names being considered, though they both carry significant hurdles to get over before a deal can be completed.

Up front Chelsea will need to give Nicolas Jackson more support, hence the interest in Sesko. Christopher Nkunku is able to play as a centre forward but his injuries meant there was a heavy reliance on Jackson to carry the load last season.

Just who, and what sort of profile, Chelsea would look at for a new No.9 is not yet clear. What is also uncertain is how much of a role Maresca will have in activity.

The recruitment think-tank have taken on control of proceedings under the new ownership, something that Pochettino struggled to get to grips with. Maresca has already discussed transfers with the club though, and a new goalkeeper, centre-back, and midfielder are among those top of the priority list.

Tosin Adarabioyo is expected to become the first deal of the Maresca era, but even then a second centre-back could be sought out depending on how things play out for Trevoh Chalobah. So despite not being busy in the January window there is no suggestion that Chelsea are done investing in their team just yet.