Chelsea has always been known as a club that is not afraid to spend big and was the first club to “buy success” when Roman Abramovich bought the club in 2003.
Without a doubt, transfer fees have gone a bit crazy in the past few years. Examples of Neymar joining French giants (Paris Saint Germain) for £200m and Paul Pogba’s £100m move to Manchester United from Juventus in 2016 would always come to mind.
Meanwhile, the ironic thing about spending heavily to sign players is that not all of the transfers do come with huge profit for the club side. A classical example is the West London side, Chelsea.
Over the years, when it comes to signing the finest of players, Chelsea is one of many clubs that attract such players – thanks to the financial support of the owner (Roman Abramovich).
However, the club has an inconsistent record when it comes to spending big bucks on players because of their meticulousness when it comes to transfer dealings – they buy at a normal rate and sell with a whole lot of profit.
Four of the five most expensive players in the club’s history have not or didn’t justify the huge transfer fees that were splurged on them. But once Chelsea wants to sell, the huge profit would come into the confers of the club.
In this feature piece, we will look at the five most expensive Chelsea signings.
- Fernando Torres – €58Million
The Spaniard is the fifth most expensive signing in the history of Chelsea. He was signed from Liverpool in 2011 but was tagged a flop by fans and pundits due to his inability to score goals aplenty for the West-London outfit.
Truly, Torres was arguably the deadliest striker in the world prior to his arrival at Chelsea. However, he couldn’t replicate his brilliant form after making the switch from Liverpool to The Blues. He only managed a meager 45 goals in 172 appearances for the Blues during his four-year stay at Stamford Bridge.
El-Nino may not have scored many goals for Chelsea, but he did score a few important ones which include the die-minute goal against Barcelona in the Semifinals of the 2011/2012 UEFA Champions League season.
- Christian Pulisic – €64 million
Captain America is an extremely sharp and pacy winger, seen as the next big thing for American football, and one of the most exciting prospects in the world currently.
Despite much pressure on him to be the much-needed replacement of erstwhile Chelsea ace (Eden Hazard), it’s agreeable that he’s not disappointed the Chelsea faithful having enjoyed a scintillating start to his life at Chelsea since he joined in the 2019/2020 covid-19 blighted season.
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The 22-year old Pulisic became Chelsea’s fourth most expensive player when he signed from Borussia Dortmund in the January transfer window of 2019. He’s currently the youngest hat-trick scorer in Chelsea’s history at the age of 21, completing a perfect hat-trick in a 4–2 away win against Burnley.
Having settled pretty well in English football, and a couple of signs of greatness in the Blue jersey more is expected from the American henceforth, and this could become a reality provided the former Dortmund winger isn’t plagued with injuries.
- Alvaro Morata – €66 million
For the records, Alvaro Morata was an alternative to Romelu Lukaku after he rejected a return to Stamford Bridge. And having brought in to replace his countryman, (Diego Costa), the former Real Madrid forward started on an imposing note at the bridge, notching six goals in his first six appearances for the Londoners but hurriedly fade off.
Morata’s inability to sustain his early fantastic form at Chelsea brought about his dip in confidence which eventually cost him a place in Antonio Conte’s starting eleven.
The Spain international featured 72 times for Chelsea in all competitions, he managed to score 24 goals, looking out of sort for most parts of his Chelsea career.
A feat that no Blue’s fan would’ve expected when huge cash was splashed on him. Morata finally moved to Atletico Madrid on loan in 2019, making the move permanent in 2020.
- Kai Havertz – €79Million
The west london club clearly dominated the transfer market prior to the commencement of the 2020/2021 season; the signing of Havertz summed up the buzzy transfer window for the Blues.
Havertz is a technically gifted, two-footed midfielder who is comfortable with the ball on either foot and adept with his head. The young German is regarded as one of the best young players in the world as of now, having had an impactful stint with Bayer Leverkusen last term.
In Havertz, Chelsea has a midfielder capable of playing in various attacking and midfield positions, little wonder he’s been tagged as the new Mesut Ozil of German football.
With the current crop of attacking players at Lampard’s disposal, Kai obviously is one of the most reliable of them all and it will be interesting to see how far the 21-year old can go.
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- Kepa Arrizabalaga – €80 million
Chelsea looks to be jinxed with buying Spanish players who end up becoming transfer frauds; Kepa is another example. The most expensive goalkeeper in world football is obviously not a fan favorite at Chelsea at the moment.
Just like Morata, the goaltender was brought in as a replacement for Thibaut Courtois but he has performed far below the height at which the Belgian performed as a Chelsea goalkeeper.
The Spanish international truly committed some errors resulting in the club conceding a mammoth number of goals last season. According to Transfermarkt, Kepa has conceded 116 goals in 99 appearances for Chelsea, recording an exiguous number of clean sheets.
Also, it’s on record that during Kepa’s time as Chelsea’s number one shot-stopper, retired Petr Cech was included in Chelsea’s squad due to an injury that plagued the new Senegalese goalkeeper, Edouard Mendy.
Without mincing words, Kepa is definitely one of the overpriced signings in the history of the Premier League and probably the worst of them all.
