3 Chelsea Players Who Are Fighting for Their Futures in 2015/16
With just under a week remaining in the transfer market, it seems Chelsea have finally woken up to the fact they need to add reinforcements if they are to put together a successful defence of their Premier League title.
We've already seen Baba Rahman and Pedro added to manager Jose Mourinho's squad, while the news of John Stones' transfer request from Everton suggests he may well be a Chelsea player before the window closes.
It means the champions are looking stronger than they were before the new campaign started, yet the arrival of some players may well lead to the exit of some others.
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Indeed, Juan Cuadrado has now moved on loan to Juventus since Pedro's capture.
So who could be next?
Well, we shouldn't expect any other high-profile exits from Stamford Bridge just yet, although there is a sense some players in Mourinho's squad will be playing for their futures over the course of 2015/16.
Bleacher Report takes at a look at three who may well be looking over their shoulders.
It seems odd. Just a few months ago, the Chelsea captain was being heralded for completing his finest season in English football.
At 34, his performances in Chelsea's title-winning campaign had given Terry the look of a man far from the end of his career. Physically, he looked no different from his prime in his mid-20s, playing every minute of every game as Chelsea cruised to their fifth league success.
Three games into 2015/16, it all looks very different. There's suddenly a clamour of columns asking the same question: Is he finished?
It's far from the case, of course. Terry remains Chelsea's best defender—a conversation to be had in more depth later this week on Bleacher Report—but regardless of that fact, he is facing a battle for his future in west London.
It may be seen as an overreaction, but given Terry's age, every bad patch of form will raise the inevitable questions as to whether or not he can still cope with the rigours of Premier League football.
Now he needs to show the world and Mourinho that he can.
Chelsea have been lacklustre at the back this term. They've shipped seven goals in just three matches, and the defence is looking worryingly unstable.
It's not so much the goals that have brought about this instability, either. It's more to do the with the circumstances surrounding Terry.
First he was a half-time casualty against Manchester City before being sent off against West Bromwich Albion on Sunday.
That means he will miss Saturday's clash with Crystal Palace, where Gary Cahill and Kurt Zouma will take charge and attempt to record Chelsea's first clean sheet since early May when, as if by coincidence, Chelsea played Palace.
The City substitution had its tactical merits, yet there was a worrying aspect to be considered from Terry's perspective.
Chelsea were losing 1-0 and being largely outplayed by manager Manuel Pellegrini's side. It's normally in those moments that managers want their best and most able players on the pitch, yet it wasn't the case for Terry.
Mourinho was publicly acknowledging that Terry's position and influence has been diluted at Stamford Bridge. He remains a strong character and presence, but there are going to be times he isn't needed.
From that moment, we saw the phasing out of Chelsea's captain. It was always going to happen, and now the process has started.
Terry's job is to dictate how long his Chelsea career can last. Will it go beyond his current one-year contract or is this his last hurrah?
Should he return to his 2014/15 level, it would be folly for Chelsea not to give him another contract extension. If things continue as they have been, however, we may well be looking at a player who is on his way out.
Gary Cahill
There aren't questions about Cahill's Chelsea career this season because he isn't good enough. It would be wrong and way off the point to suggest that.
The concern for the 29-year-old, however, is where he fits in now that Terry's Chelsea career has entered its final stages.
If Chelsea do eventually sign Stones from Everton, it's probably Cahill's position as a first-team regular that is under threat.
The Premier League champions will then have two exceptional young defenders emerging as the future of their defence, and Mourinho will be eager to get Stones and Zouma playing together as soon as possible.
That's not to suggest we can expect them to be Chelsea's preferred partnership immediately, but in the long term, Mourinho will begin to change things, adapting his defence with the future in mind.
Despite Chelsea's strength elsewhere in this team, defensively they are at a transitional point. And as we've seen too often in the past, transition leads to big casualties.
Cahill is too big a name to leave on the bench every week, but then again, so is Stones if Chelsea pay north of £30 million for him.
Chelsea will be paying that sort of money with the view of the Everton man being the player everything revolves around in a defensive sense, which threatens Cahill given how Zouma continues to develop.
At 29, he still has plenty of years left in him. Cahill has shown himself to be a fine defender since he joined Chelsea in 2012, too, becoming an established part of the successes the club has enjoyed in that time.
We need only see how Petr Cech has moved on from Stamford Bridge to know Cahill's position isn't totally secure, though.
When things change, some are unwitting victims of circumstance. With younger faces being drafted in, Cahill may well find it happens to him.
Now more than ever, he needs to show those qualities that got him to Chelsea in the first place, to show what a leader he can be for Mourinho's men as they move forward.
Radamel Falcao
He's not long completed his first month at Chelsea, but this is a big season for Falcao.
And he's playing for much more than his Chelsea career—there's a sense the Colombian's arrival at Stamford Bridge is his last shot at being among the elite.
We saw what Falcao was capable of when he played for Porto and Atletico Madrid. He continued that to some degree with Monaco before a knee injury in January 2014 curtailed his debut season in Ligue 1.
He hasn't been right since, with his loan move to Manchester United proving a disaster.
Joining Chelsea in a similar temporary move this summer, he needs to prove he can still do it. If he doesn't, Chelsea aren't going to take up their option to buy him, and it's difficult to imagine another of Europe's elite clubs coming to his rescue.
Falcao's fall from grace has been such that he can't convince teams to sign him permanently. Whether or not Chelsea should have taken him on loan is a totally different discussion, but the fact they opted out of a permanent deal shows the club has its doubts about him.
In terms of vote of confidence, it's not exactly a significant one for the Colombian.
He scored just four goals for United last season, a dismal return for any striker, let alone a man who comes with such a fierce reputation.
Mourinho said this summer that he wanted Falcao to show that last season was just a blip on his road to recovery from that knee injury.
"It hurts me that people in England think that the real Falcao is the one we saw at Manchester United," the Chelsea boss told South American TV (per Eurosport).
Well, if Falcao doesn't show us it's to the contrary, then it's his Chelsea career that will be significantly wounded.
He needs to do much more than simply be Diego Costa's back-up. Falcao needs to match his team-mate's goalscoring form to become a significant asset at Chelsea and convince them he's worth the investment.
If not, it's curtains.
Garry Hayes is Bleacher Report's lead Chelsea correspondent. All quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Follow him on Twitter @garryhayes.
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