Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca has reiterated to his creative players that they will have to cope with time out of the team this season.
Throughout the summer transfer window, the perception was that the Blues required a trademark centre-forward to compete with Nicolas Jackson rather than an influx of fresh wide talent.
Instead, Chelsea's recruitment team proceeded to bring in Pedro Neto, Joao Felix and Jadon Sancho to rival the likes of Cole Palmer, Noni Madueke, Mykhaylo Mudryk and Christopher Nkunku.
Six of those players featured against Bournemouth at the Vitality Stadium on Saturday evening, Sancho combining with Nkunku for the latter to prod home a late winner in a 1-0 victory.
Of the half-a-dozen players that were involved, only Palmer completed the 90 minutes, with Madueke featuring for just over an hour and the other four participating for no more than one half.
Mudryk was the only wideman to miss out on minutes versus the Cherries, yet it appears that the Ukrainian should not expect to be singled out by his boss.
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"They will not play all the games"
Speaking to the media after the hard-fought win, Maresca revealed that he had told the attackers in the minutes before his press conference that they should not expect to be in the starting lineup on a weekly basis.
The Italian said, as quoted by football.london: "At the end of the game I said to the players Christoph, Cole Palmer, Jadon, Joao, Noni, Mischa, Pedro, they are not going to play all the games.
"What they have to do is exactly what they did tonight. If I play, I have to give all my best. If I go inside for ten minutes, I have to give all my best. This will be until the end because they are seven or eight good players and we cannot play with all of them.
"Sometimes they have to be out but the important thing is they are ready when they get minutes. Christoph is doing perfect. He didn't deserve to stay out, Mischa didn't deserve but sometimes you have to take decisions. The good thing when they go inside is that they are ready and they give everything.
Quizzed on whether he has a preferred front four, Maresca added: "No, we are still a work in progress for sure. We are learning process and again tonight if we don't understand in this kind of games we need more than the tactical part, we need the desire.
"It will be difficult because we want to build something important. Slowly, slowly we are going to understand these kind of things."
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A week off before relentless schedule
Unlike some of the teams who are playing in Europe this season, Chelsea have no match in midweek ahead of facing West Ham United in the Premier League on Saturday lunchtime.
That represents their first fixture of five to be played in 15 days, the latter four all being played at Stamford Bridge in three different competitions.
Games against Barrow (in the EFL Cup), Brighton & Hove Albion, Gent (in the Europa Conference League) and Nottingham Forest will give Maresca the chance to rotate the players at his disposal.
Darren Plant
