Granovskaia and Buck leave Todd Boehly very quickly learning on the Chelsea job

Chelsea are losing their chairman and a ‘transfer guru’ at a time when the club needs an overhaul in several different areas.

All change at Stamford Bridge, then. Bruce Buck and Marina Granovskaia leaving Chelsea is no huge surprise, but the timing is probably less than helpful to a club that has to undergo a lot of change this summer. The departure of the chairman appointed by Roman Abramovich in 2003 and his chief assistant was an inevitable side-effect of the sale to Todd Boehly’s consortium. It is expected that Boehly will take on both of these positions while replacements are found.

This severance isn’t complete. Buck will remain with the club as an advisor, and his statement regarding his future there – “The owners have a compelling vision for Chelsea’s future, and I look forward to helping them achieve it in this new role alongside our incredible staff, players, coaches and supporters” – seemed enthusiastic, but this moment does mark a break with the past, and it also comes in the middle of a period when Chelsea are undergoing considerable transition.

The Sun described Marina Granovskaia as Chelsea’s ‘transfer guru’, so Boehly taking over her role will be particularly important. The club lost Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen at the end of last season, while it now seems almost certain that Romelu Lukaku, who spent the whole of last season slowly transforming into a square peg in a round hole, will go to Inter on loan, while Cezar Azpilicueta seems almost certain to head to Barcelona and Thiago Silva turns 38 in September. Their defence requires significant rebuilding work.

And this squad has other structural questions that remain blowing in the wind. N’Golo Kante and Jorginho are both now over 30 and have just one year remaining on their contracts. The club will not want a repeat of what happened with Rudiger and Christensen, so decisions will have to be made over whether to extend those contracts or seek replacements for them. Kante in particular leaves a huge hole to fill, although he has had terrible luck with injuries in recent years. Billy Gilmour has returned from his loan spell with Norwich but the future of Conor Gallagher, who was outstanding for Crystal Palace last season, remains slightly uncertain and needs to be tied up.

Combining the role of ‘transfer guru’ and club chairman sounds like hard work at the best of times – all the more so when the business concerned has consistently been losing…