The changing faces of Chelsea's core.

With the signing of Gary Cahill, it seems to me that slowly but surely, Chelsea are rebuilding the core of our side. For years, the core of the team has been Petr Cech, John Terry, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba and we have seen them lead the side to the recent successes we have had. We have seen different players come and go as managers have built sides around them.

What we have seen in the last three transfer windows (Jan 2012, June/July/Aug 2012 and Jan 2011) is the club investing plenty of money in younger additions to the squad but think about it, these are players that will become the basis of the core of Chelsea's future for the next five years as the likes of Drogba, Lampard and Terry become less so.

David Luiz and Gary Cahill have been brought into the defence, Ramires and Romeu into the midfield and Sturridge and Torres up front. Courtious has been signed and loaned out but has been earmarked as Petr Cech's long term replacement. These are all players with their best years ahead of them, all with long contracts at the club.

It's a cleaver move by the club as AVB takes us forward into what he calls the "transition" period. It's always going to be difficult to change a squad full of players with the winning mentality and experience. It will be interesting to see if anyone else is added to our ranks or leaves the club before the window closes.

It's important (although we get frustrated when performances and results don't go our way) to remember that AVB has been asked to build for Chelsea's future in mind, while maintaining levels of expectation from the board and the fans.

I think we all know that the league title is beyond us this season but Champions League qualification has to be expected with a top four finish. We also expect a better performance in the later stages of the Champions League than we have had in the last two seasons under Ancelotti and as for the FA Cup, who knows!.

If we can get a good run between now and the end of the season and represent well in all competitions then there are plenty of positives to be taken from the season. How well will Chelsea do in the three competitions we have left this season? Get all of the latest Betting News and betting tips and odds today with betfair. Be sure not to miss out on their fantastic odds by coming to the site today!

It's next season, and how the first team squad takes shape that will be interesting. Will we see some of the old established core still here? or will we see a new core replacing them?

KTBFFH

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