Chelsea Player of the Season 2023-24 power rankings: No one comes close to Cole Palmer after superb debut campaign

The first in a string of injury blows Chelsea suffered before a ball was even kicked in competitive action this season. Injury-plagued Fofana has missed the entirety of the campaign having undergone reconstructive surgery on a ruptured ACL in the summer. Remarkably, he was back running on grass very swiftly, but that proved to be a false dawn.

Chelsea’s third-choice goalkeeper returned having been out of action for some time with an unknown injury, but he hasn’t made a single appearance all season.

The £58 million ($71m) summer signing was struck down by Chelsea’s injury curse before even making his debut. Having damaged ankle ligaments in training, the midfielder – who Chelsea fought Liverpool tooth and nail to sign – returned for a single game in December before being sidelined again with a serious thigh injury and eventually ruled out for the rest of season.

One of the plethora of young players to sign for Chelsea in the past year, Brazilian forward Washington has featured in a number of Pochettino’s Premier League squads and was handed his debut against Brentford in October, but he has been given limited first-team opportunities as he focused on making an impression with the Under-23s.

The season became another injury nightmare for James, who hurt his hamstring yet again on the opening day having been named club captain in the summer. He returned in October, but his comeback was all too brief as he suffered a recurrence in December.

He has undergone surgery in the hope of finally ending his woes for good, and he made an impactful return against Nottingham Forest on Saturday as he provided an assist.

Ugochukwu perhaps wouldn’t have expected to find himself in the first-team picture so soon, but the 19-year-old summer arrival came in useful amid Chelsea’s injury crisis. However, he has had fitness issues of his own since December, making just one appearance.

What could have been… Nkunku was widely expected to the man in attack for the Blues this season, but a serious knee injury suffered on a dodgy pitch in pre-season put paid to that. He made his long-awaited return in December and scored on his Premier League debut, but a hamstring injury sidelined him for another long stretch. He’s never been able to find his groove.

One of Chelsea’s few outstanding performers before his fine start to the season was halted by an untimely knee injury. Chukwuemeka looked ready to seize the opportunities afforded him by his new head coach after having limited chances last year, putting in a number of lively attacking displays.

The versatile midfielder made a return but has suffered two setbacks since and seems set to miss the end of the season.

The defender endured his own injury nightmare in the first half of the campaign, only returning against Man City in February. It had been reported that he was deemed surplus to requirements after a summer move to Bayern Munich failed to materialise, but Pochettino has been keen to utilise him and he has become an important presence amid the Blues’ late-season uptick in form.

Centre-back Badiashile missed the whole of pre-season after suffering a serious hamstring injury in May, and a minor setback in his recovery meant he was been made to wait even longer to make his return. He marked his comeback against Blackburn in the Carabao Cup with a goal, but he followed that with a couple of high-profile errors and was sidelined again with a groin problem. He was back in time for the run-in, but still looks haphazard on occasion.

After an indifferent start to the campaign, Chilwell’s recurrent hamstring injury issues struck again, with the left-back kept out until mid-January. The newly-appointed vice-captain didn’t look anything close to his best after his comeback, with his passing notably wayward, and a knee issue forced him back onto the treatment table for the run-in.

Not the most inspiring signing between the sticks given he had been knocked down to third in the pecking order at Brighton, but Sanchez had been solid enough as Chelsea’s No.1 until an injury in December. He hasn’t played since as Djordje Petrovic has deputised ably in his absence, so he has a fight on his hands to earn a recall if he isn’t sold in the summer.

Just as many predicted would be the case, Pochettino has handled Mudryk with care this season – but the Argentine seems to be running out of patience somewhat with a player who is still so far short of what was expected of him.

Although he has regained his starting place as we head towards the end of 2023-24, the winger still looks bereft of confidence and his attacking contributions have dried up – bar a goal at Forest. Many people at the club will be growing increasingly doubtful that he will ever come good in a blue shirt.

Cucurella wasn’t expected to be at the club when the summer transfer window closed, but after Chelsea failed to shift him in their fire sale, he now finds himself fighting for his future. Injuries and suspensions opened the door to him initially and he seized the opportunity with some combative performances, but the Blues’ injury curse befell him in December and he had surgery on his ankle.

He has been fit for the latter part of the season and become surprisingly important as an inverted full-back.

Colwill perhaps hasn’t lived up to the lofty expectations that followed his return from a successful loan at Brighton, but Pochettino has often strangely opted to deploy him as a traditional left-back.

He was eventually restored to his natural centre-back position and looked far more comfortable, especially alongside Axel Disasi. However, a toe injury has derailed the latter part of his season.

Signed from New England Revolution in MLS as Chelsea overhauled their goalkeeping department in the summer, the Serb has had an unexpected chance to impress. With Sanchez out injured, Petrovic has stepped in and has generally been pretty solid, other than letting saveable efforts beat him on occasion. It will be interesting to see whether he is No.1 next season.

After a very rocky start, the £115m ($141m) man has just about settled into life at Chelsea, evidently finding match fitness after a disrupted summer. There are finally the signs of the form that convinced Chelsea to spend that eye-watering sum as the season winds down, with the Ecuadorian quietly going about his work, although he certainly still has a long away to go to come anywhere close to justifying his price tag.

Although he is still struggling to endear himself to the Chelsea faithful, Sterling was one of the club’s most consistent and impressive performers in the first part of 2023-24, with 16 attacking contributions to his name evenly split between goals and assists.

He can be frustrating at times, but Sterling has come good in some crucial moments for Chelsea this season – not least with a fine goal at former club Man City. That said, form and fitness have let him down at the business end.

The veteran centre-back would normally expect to find himself locked in far higher up these rankings, but he’s been somewhat out of sorts amid another difficult season, cutting a frustrated figure having occasionally been exposed in Pochettino’s fluid back-four shape.

He has been back to his old self in the run-in, but we are witnessing his swansong as Chelsea have confirmed he will depart at the end of the season, with his boyhood club Fluminense since confirming he will return there in the summer.

After a strong finish to 2022-23, it took some time for Madueke to earn Pochettino’s trust. An early run-in with his new manager after being filmed on a night out while injured may have hampered his chances, but he has become a more prominent figure in recent times.

He has finished with a flourish again, emerging as a key player and making a string of vital contributions amid Chelsea’s late-season resurgence.

Signed in the wake of Fofana’s injury, Disasi made a steady-enough start to life at Stamford Bridge, including a crucial equalising goal against Liverpool on debut.

The defender is by no means the finished article, and is prone to a rush of blood to the head, but he is beginning to show maturity beyond his years and seems to have very much found his feet at the heart of the Chelsea defence.

Football is a sport of fine margins, and had things gone slightly differently, Jackson might have found himself right at the top of these rankings.

The Senegalese striker is proving to be something of an enigma, summed up by him scoring a hat-trick against Tottenham but still underperforming his xG back in November. He divides opinion but continues to pop up in big moments, and more than 20 goal contributions in his first season in England is nothing to be sniffed at.

The £106m ($129m) man’s base performance level is always high, although he sometimes struggled to stamp his clear authority on matches. Enzo would have wanted to be creating more in the final third, given he has just three assist to his name, but he has snuck to seven goals for the season.

There is the sense that there is more to come from the Argentine, whose campaign has been curtailed by surgery on a hernia in his groin which he has been carrying for six months, which goes some way to explaining a dip in his form in the late stages of the campaign.

After a strong start where he deputised faultlessly for the injured James, a red card for a reckless challenge towards the end of September hampered Gusto’s progress.

At 20 years old, there are unsurprisingly some facets of his game he needs to work on, including his occasional rashness, but he is an exceptional one-vs-one defender and increasingly became an important attacking weapon in the absence of James, laying on eight goals. His potential is huge.

While it was widely reported that Gallagher would move on in the summer, Pochettino has leaned on him heavily and even handed him the captain’s armband on a number of occasions.

After a slow start, the tenacious midfielder has battled to become a very important player in Pochettino’s system, and he seems to have gotten better week by week. The idea that Chelsea could try to sell him again when the transfer window opens is increasingly preposterous.

Where on earth would Chelsea be without Palmer this season?! His arrival in the summer was greeted with relative indifference, but he has since emerged as the lynchpin for the new-look Blues.

A ridiculously consistent campaign has seen him reach a remarkable combined 38 goals and assists in all competitions with two games to go, added to the two strikes he already had for City before he departed. The silky attacker has been key to the Blues’ late push for European football, ridiculously scoring 10 goals in five league games at one stage, and he is a shoo-in for Gareth Southgate’s England squad for Euro 2024 in the summer.