Plenty of Chelsea players are struggling for minutes this season but one pair's situation is particularly dire.
Manager Enzo Maresca has done his best to dish out game time by heavily rotating the side in cup competitions. A settled starting line-up is performing well in the Premier League, with the Blues sitting fourth after 10 matches.
And a much-changed European XI has fired Chelsea to a flawless start in the Europa Conference League. The Carabao Cup was also an important source of action for fringe players, making last week's round-of-16 defeat to Newcastle United that much more painful.
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For Ben Chilwell and Deivid Washington in particular, that result may have left them with no way back. Maresca has made it clear, via his selection habits, that he has no intention of incorporating either of them into his first-team plans.
Chilwell's only minutes of the season came in the Carabao Cup win over Barrow in September. The left-back has been told in no uncertain terms by Maresca that he does not fit into his three-at-the-back system, though he was left stranded at Stamford Bridge after failing to find an exit route during the summer.
With Chilwell being overlooked in the Premier League and left out of the Conference League squad entirely, and Chelsea now out of the Carabao Cup, prospects of any further action for the 27-year-old between now and January appear slim to none.
Chilwell has made more than a century of appearances for the Blues, and at one point he formed one of the most formidable full-back pairings in the Premier League along with Reece James.
Deivid's situation is similarly bleak. The 19-year-old - also left out of Chelsea's Conference League squad - will have been keen for more first-team responsibility this campaign after making three senior appearances in 2023/24, but he has been banished to Premier League 2.
Without a single competitive appearance to his name this season, the Brazilian forward, who cost a whopping £17million from Santos last year, has found no way into the side ahead of Nicolas Jackson, Christopher Nkunku and Marc Guiu.
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The FA Cup will offer Chelsea's peripheral players another opportunity for a valuable run-out. But the Blues' participation in the competition will not begin until the third round on January 11.
If Chelsea get their way and the doomed duo accept their fate, Deivid and Chilwell are both likely to have been moved on by that point in the winter transfer window, likely without getting a proper farewell to mark the end of their stints in London.
