Chelsea's team to face Arsenal in the EFL Cup semi final second leg.

Chelsea’s bench on Tuesday night tells you a lot about sporting directors’ work

By SuperFrank - 5th Feb 2026, 07:30pm

Chelsea’s massive spending over the last 4 years has broken most of the records in football.

Yet the Blues still aren’t competing for the league, and there are big questions about many of the moves they made. On the London is Blue podcast today they took a look at it in the context of Tuesday’s night defeat to Arsenal.

Chelsea have academy players on the bench and struggling stars in the team as lack of depth bites

Andrey Santos gets stuck in to Piero Hincapie. (Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images)

“You had [academy player] Shim Mheuka on the bench, and Charlie Holland on the bench, and Teddy Sharman-Lowe on the bench as our backup goalkeeper. Benoit Badiashile plays at the weekend, Marc Guiu hasn’t seen the field in some time,” presenter Nick Verlaney said, pointing out how weak the options for Liam Rosenior off the bench were.

“I don’t think Jorrel Hato had a poor game, I thought that he played relatively well. I thought that Andrey Santos played really well. Liam [Delap] has had moments, but they’ve largely kind of come and gone. It’s really, really tough for this group.”

It certainly doesn’t compare well with Arsenal, who have consistently managed to sign quality players that fit right into their first team picture, without spending anything like what we have.

You can see them discussing the squad depth in the clip embedded here:

❓ @nickverlaney: You had Shim Mheuka, Charlie Holland & Teddy Sharman-Lowe on the bench (vs Arsenal). Guiu hasn't seen the field in some time. Delap has had moments, but largely just come and go.
Are Chelsea suffering from a lack of depth?

🎧👉 https://t.co/ewen6862Bj pic.twitter.com/o195CS5LlS

— London Is Blue Podcast ⭐️⭐️ (@LondonBluePod) February 5, 2026

In other news…

Liam Rosenior has been nominated for the manager of the month award after picking up 3 wins from 3 in his first month as Chelsea boss. Not bad going, eh?

Liam Delap has not impressed at Chelsea overall, and a poor performance on the wing on Tuesday has raised yet more questions. One pundit is suggesting that he should have taken a stepping stone move to a mid-table team.