After dropping out of European football and committing over £1billion to potential transfer fees, the club are towing a fine line with Premier League profitability and sustainability rules (PSRs). They have not been charged with breaches yet – largely due to a mass summer exodus of players including Mason Mount – but will need to improve their financial position in order to remain safe from possible punishment.

It has led to the club being publicly open to letting key first-team figures depart despite their importance to Mauricio Pochettino on the field. Conor Gallagher in particular has established himself as integral to operations under the Argentine and has regularly been captain in the absence of Reece James and Ben Chilwell.

Former Chelsea attacker and fan favourite Joe Cole believes that despite only having 18 months left on his contract, Gallagher is worth way more to the club than a transfer price can ever do justice. Cole told football.london, on behalf of TNT Sports who will show the midweek fixtures in the Premier League this week, “It’s one of those situations where, me included, the fans don’t know a lot of the details of the financial fair play regulations and bureaucracy of it.

“I don’t understand it, the concept of the rule. That you get more bang for your buck by producing your own players, that incentivises clubs to do that, that’s a good thing.

“From Chelsea’s perspective, I’d like to think that the owners have really thought this through. It’s one of the intangibles isn’t it? When you’ve got players that have come through your academy that have been bred and lived it and everything from the culture of the club, they know the history better than the people that own the club.

“That’s fine, that’s normal. Of course, they’re going to do and they’ve been at the club since five, six, seven, eight years of age. So that has a value, I don’t think it turns up on any spreadsheet because what they bring to the fans, what they bring to the group, then on top of that you add the quality of [Armando] Broja and Gallagher, what they can bring to the party, particularly Conor.

“He’s further down the line to Armando, he’s played more games, had more seasons, been a captain. I’d like them [the owners] to take a breath and think. I think it’d be rash to let certainly Conor go and I also think that Armando has got time to develop in a Chelsea shirt. He’s just come back from an injury, he’s not played as many games as Conor, he’s not as established yet simply because of time but I’d like to see that they’ve really considered that before they make a decision.

“Conor Gallagher is a massive part of the club at the moment and that is something that should be valued and nurtured, not thrown out the door just to get a few quid in. I don’t agree with that.”

Cole continued to explain that Chelsea’s diminishing returns in the league can be overcome in time though. He believes that things can turnaround in time with more care, starting with how academy players a dealt with. “Decisions like the Conor Gallagher one, I’m sure the people in charge have really, really considered it but you need to have someone in there that can say, ‘no, no, you can’t let him go. You particularly can’t let him go to Tottenham.’ You need patience in the manager.”

The TNT pundit explained: “Chelsea have had four managers in the last 18 months, four top managers, and look where they’ve ended up. It’s like when you get lost and you go and look round and round and you’re back where you started from.

“You need to take a breath. You’ve got all these young players, what do they need? Help them out. Are the fans onside? Do the fans understand where we are at the moment? Do the people talking about Chelsea in the media understand? It’s no good sensationalising it and saying, ‘Chelsea are not winning Champions Leagues and leagues and FA Cups anymore at the moment. They’re miles off it.’

“You just need to keep going and make the right decisions and don’t panic. Doing that as a club is very difficult. We’ve seen Manchester United, we’ve seen Liverpool in recent years. Chelsea need to be very smart in the next 18 months to make sure they get back.

“It won’t happen this year in terms of getting back into the Champions League but I think next year it can be done. You have to make the right decisions.”