To further rub salt into the already oozing wounds of Chelsea fans we’ve come up with an XI of players recently sold by the Blues who would probably have beaten Manchester City to the title this season.

Carlo Ancelotti would be a good fit as coach but we reckon any previous manager able to coach “the basics” would have a good chance of pipping Pep Guardiola’s lads with this side. So here’s Bruno Saltor’s Blue army…

GK: Thibaut Courtois
He wasn’t able to stop them this year, but the best goalkeeper in world football played a huge hand with his huge hands in denying Manchester City in last year’s Champions League, before claiming the Man of the Match award in the final against Liverpool.

The Belgium international was roundly booed when he returned to Stamford Bridge last season, and again this time around; the fickleness of football fans would be glorious were he to return.

RB: Fikayo Tomori
You’ll notice that we’ve opted for four centre-backs, because what better way to beat Guardiola than to copy his tactics? Tomori didn’t exactly cover himself in glory in the first leg of Milan’s Champions League semi-final against Inter, but he’s started all but one of the Serie A games he’s been available for this term and a right-back berth will mean he doesn’t have to battle strikers, while making the most of his extreme speed.

CB: Marc Guehi
All the big boys want him and they can’t all be wrong. Guehi is a 22-year-old captain who’s quick, reads the game brilliantly, is comfortable on the ball and makes the right decisions time after time. Chelsea didn’t even give him a chance. Sigh.

CB: Antonio Rudiger
Rudiger came up with one of the few methods of stopping Erling Haaland, which amounted to irritating the p*ss out of him. Chelsea have missed his ebullient sh*thousery hugely this season.

LB: Nathan Ake
£22m seemed like a lot for Bournemouth to pay for Ake in 2016, just as £42m seemed like a hell of a lot of Man City to spend on him four years later. But as Guardiola says he’s “playing beyond our expectations at left-back” as the Spaniard recognised the need for a “proper defender” against your Mohamed Salahs and Bukayo Sakas.

CM: Jorginho
Admittedly it doesn’t look great that Jorginho has featured in five of the six games Arsenal have lost this season having only arrived in January, but few would lay the bottles at his door. His lack of pace shouldn’t be an issue with four centre-backs behind and few are better at keeping the ball moving in front of the defence.

CM: Kevin De Bruyne
It’s not just that Chelsea would be really good; City would also be quite a lot worse without this guy, who was shunned by Jose Mourinho for “not being an easy kid”, whatever that means.

RW: Mohamed Salah
If he was “devastated” by Liverpool’s season, Salah would have been on suicide watch had he still been at Chelsea. Imagine not having to put up with Hakim Ziyech’s sulking mug for the last three seasons.

AM: Oscar
“Hopefully we can talk,” Oscar said, making an unlikely plea this week to make a “dream” return to Chelsea next season, six years after his £67m move to Shanghai, for whom he’s got an insane 101 assists in 184 games, as well as 53 goals. F*** yes he can come back – make him captain.

LW: Tammy Abraham
Sold him for £40m and regretted it almost immediately, with Abraham attracting interest from Manchester United – among others – since. Chelsea can get him back for £70m this summer when his buyback clause comes into effect. Guys, he knows the club, just like Romelu Lukaku and Frank Lampard.

ST: Olivier Giroud
Eleven goals and five assists in Serie A is by no means a grand return, but it would be comfortably enough to top the charts at Chelsea, where Kai Havertz leads the goalscoring stakes with seven, while Ziyech and Raheem Sterling have the most assists on three. He would have scored a bundle for Chelsea this season given the chances created, let alone in this team.

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