Tiémoué Bakayoko among 13 fringe players released by Chelsea

The annual retained/released lists were published by the Premier League this morning, with Chelsea submitting 13 names in the latter category, including the one called out in the headline, Tiémoué Bakayoko.

That’s right, after six years on the books, the now 28-year-old midfielder will be officially out of contract with Chelsea. He had spent the last two years with AC Milan, though the last 18 months he’s been little more than an observer, collecting a grand total of 39 minutes this season. Hope he’s invested his money wisely for the future.

Bakayoko leaves with a grand total of 43 appearances in his one season of play for Chelsea proper, and he still holds the distinction for the lowest rated individual performance (1.4 on a scale of 1-10) in our community player ratings.

He did have a cool song for that one brief moment though. (Incidentally, N’Golo Kanté, the supporting character in that song, is also leaving.)

The other most notable name on our released list is goalkeeper Nathan Baxter, who had been targeting a first-team and had a master plan all laid out to get there, but despite passing just about every test on the way, will evidently not get there. So that’s a bit sad, though he shouldn’t be short of suitors this summer.

Juan Castillo and Bryan Fiabema may be familiar names as well, once highly rated signings by the Academy, but not quite making that final step. Castillo has battled a series of injuries in recent years as well.

The other youngsters with expiring contracts who have been released include Derrick “CHO$EN” Abu, Prince Adegoke, Joe Haigh, Henry Lawrence, Sam McClelland (a senior Northern Ireland international already), Dujon Sterling (signing with Rangers), Silko Thomas, Ethan Wady, and Jay Wareham. @chelseayouth has a good thread on Twitter with a brief note on all of them.

Meanwhile, Chelsea’s retained list confirms that we have extended offers to Malik Mothersille as well the very exciting Tudor Mendel-Idowu, so hopefully they sign soon. (N’Golo Kanté was also offered a deal, but he’s taking the one from the Saudi Pro League instead.)