It was looking pretty good there for a while – second in the Premier League, playing some decent football, scoring plenty of goals, not wholly reliant on Cole Palmer – but Chelsea’s form has fallen off a cliff post-Christmas and we’re now back to scratching our heads at how a club can spend so much money on so little.
Frustratingly we no longer know which of the Chelsea owners to point the finger of blame at, with Todd Boehly shrinking into the shadows and Clearlake chief Behdad Eghbali a far more unassuming presence. So these are the Booehly-Clearlake signings – all 28 of them that have actually played for the club – ranked from the worst to the very obvious best.
28) Mykhaylo Mudryk (£62m from Shakhtar Donetsk)
The transfer poster boy of the Clearlake reign, whose impact at Chelsea since they hijacked his proposed move to Arsenal can be summed up by no-one really caring or even noticing that he’s currently suspended having failed a drugs test.
27) Kalidou Koulibaly (£33m from Napoli)
He wasn’t good, but to entirely discount signing experienced players on the back of his lacklustre performances has proven to be an incredibly short-sighted – or rather long-sighted – decision that continues to hamper Chelsea’s progress.
26) Raheem Sterling (£50m from Manchester City)
He was actually very good for Chelsea for a very brief period just over a year ago, but it all went to sh*t when Maresca arrived and decided Sterling wasn’t for him; a wise choice based on his continued demise at Arsenal.
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25) Lesley Ugochukwu (£23m from Rennes)
He’s started seven Premier League games on loan at one of the worst teams ever to play in the top flight.
24) Joao Felix (£44.5m from Atletico Madrid)
Did very little at Chelsea on loan in the second half of the 2022/2023 season and even less having joined permanently at the start of the current campaign, when he, the club bosses and Maresca all presumably knew he had no hope of usurping Cole Palmer and playing anywhere near enough football to make the move worthwhile. A ridiculous decision by all parties that’s now benefitting AC Milan.
23) Axel Disasi (£39m from Monaco)
Having won the race with Tottenham to sign him Disasi on loan, we wonder whether Aston Villa will in fact turn out to be the losers when/if he starts playing football for them.
22) David Datro Fofana (£10m from Molde)
He looked pretty good for Burnley in the second half of last season but Chelsea won’t have been hugely encouraged by Fofana throwing a hissy fit at the Union Berlin manager before that or by him mainly watching from the bench for Turkish Super Lig side Goztepe this season. We would be very surprised if he ever played for Chelsea again.
21) Wesley Fofana (£71m from Leicester City)
He looked like the best of a very bad centre-back bunch at the start of the season before another crushing injury blow. He’s made just 32 appearances in two-and-half-years.
20) Robert Sanchez (£25m from Brighton)
No Premier League player has made more than his seven errors leading to an opponent shot and Enzo Maresca has finally dropped him in favour of one of the other 427 not-fit-for-purpose Chelsea goalkeepers.
19) Benoit Badiashile (£33m from Monaco)
We had such high hopes, claiming in one version of this ranking that Badiashile ‘has all the typical physical qualities required to be a top Premier League centre-back, along with the composure reserved for the very best’. His displays since have led us to question not only that take but whether we’re qualified to analyse football in general.
18) Kiernan-Dewsbury Hall (£30m from Leicester)
Somebody should have told him. A mate, a partner, a parent, anyone should have sat him down, put a hand on his shoulder and asked: ‘Kiernan, I know you like him, but do you really think Papa Maresca is going to play you ahead of a £222m midfield duo?’
17) Carney Chukwuemeka (£16m from Aston Villa)
We fully expect him to thrive on loan at Borrussia Dortmund having been baffled by Maresca not handing Chukwuemeka a single start and just 130 minutes of action in the first half of the season.
16) Christopher Nkunku (£53m from RB Leipzig)
He’s been frustrated to the point of wanting out in January, having played mainly against teams he won’t have heard of before scoring against in the Conference League, but now’s his chance amid a forward crisis at Stamford Bridge. Maresca’s not convinced Nkunku can do a job up top and neither are we, but his value remains high.
15) Renato Veiga (£11.8m from Basel)
We really liked what we saw of him and it’s very odd given how much Chelsea have struggled with centre-backs that Maresca didn’t even try Veiga in his preferred position. The 21-year-old felt he had little choice to but to leave for Juventus on loan, and he’s played every minute at centre-back in three wins since he arrived, with Veiga supposedly particularly impressive against PSV Eindhoven in the Champions League.
A half-decent signing who will at worst make Chelsea a decent wedge when they sell him.
14) Filip Jorgensen (£20.7m from Villarreal)
The real test of his ability is still to come now that Maresca has hung his hat on him as his new No.1, but we can’t help looking at all these middling sums for goalkeepers and wonder whether Chelsea may have been better off combining the £75m they’ve spent on four of them that might turn out to be good enough and bought one finished product.
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13) Jadon Sancho (on loan from Manchester United)
The Chelsea chiefs will argue that even the very limited and frustrating version of Sancho we’re currently enduring is worth the £25m they’ll need to pay Manchester United for in the summer, and they’re right, but we were all really hoping that the winger could maintain his early season form and properly rub his success in Red Devils faces rather than being reduced to aiming thinly-veiled digs on social media.
READ MORE: Sancho slipping into familiar Man Utd groove at Chelsea amid empty Maresca threats
12) Djordje Petrovic (£12m from New England Revolution)
He’s yet to make an error on loan at Strasbourg this season but made three having been given his chance as Chelsea’s No.1 last season. Certainly not a bad signing at £12m but also definitely not the long-term solution for the Blues.
11) Pedro Neto (£51m from Wolves)
It didn’t feel like they really needed him and two goals and two assists in 21 Premier League games has done little to sway us from that opinion. He thrived at Wolves with the free rein that comes with being a big fish in a small pond and the space granted to him on the break courtesy of them being a lesser side. He looks stunted at Chelsea, trying to do similar things but to much lesser effect against packed defences.
10) Tosin Adarabioyo (free transfer from Fulham)
He’s been neither great nor bad, but has provided some welcome experience as a 27-year-old veteran in a team of children, and cost nothing.
9) Marc Guiu (£5m from Barcelona)
Six Conference League goals at a rate of one every 47 minutes is good going, even given the competition caveat, and Chelsea will definitely make money on him.
8) Romeo Lavia (£58m from Southampton)
Chelsea are so much better when he’s available, with neither Caicedo or Fernandez able to turn defence into attack with such ease on the half-turn in midfield. He’s been hugely impressive in the games he’s played but there have been far too few of them, with Lavia limited to just 12 games this term after just one substitute appearance in his debut season.
Chelsea would be cruising into the Champions League next season had Lavia been fit for most of this campaign, which would almost certainly have seen him take second place on this list.
7) Enzo Fernandez (£107m from Benfica)
He’s been much, much better this season; genuinely brilliant in some games. But we don’t think we’re asking too much in wanting him to be very good in all games and brilliant in some, and he still goes missing far too often.
There is also still a question mark as to whether he would even be in Chelsea’s best team, with a midfield pairing of Moises Caicedo and Lavia covering more bases.
6) Marc Cucurella (£58m from Brighton)
He set an incredibly low bar in his debut season, with his performances now chalk to that cheese (or is cheese the good one?), but we don’t know if he’s actually a very good full-back or whether he was just so sh*t before that we’ve been lulled into thinking he is. Cucurella often leaves you wanting more, particularly having seen what he is capable of in the Euros for Spain.
5) Noni Madueke (£31m from PSV Eindhoven)
The consistency isn’t quite there but he always looks likely to do something, and at least tries to beat his man and create chances, with his first thought to attack rather than keep possession for possession’s sake.
4) Malo Gusto (£31m from Lyon)
Reece James has made his 427th return from injury and come back into Maresca’s starting XI, but it feels more like he’s been shoehorned in as captain rather than being there on merit. He shouldn’t be losing a foot race to Carlos Soler.
Gusto wouldn’t and we’re pretty convinced there will be plenty of top sides queuing up to steal the 21-year-old away should he get frustrated by a lack of game time. His peak may not be as high as James’ but he’s solid in defence, comfortable in possession and – crucially – available to play most of the time.
3) Moises Caicedo (£115m from Brighton)
Gary Neville’s “billion pound bottlejobs” jibe that was clearly aimed primarily at him and midfield partner Enzo Fernandez is nearly a year old, and whether Caicedo used that as motivation to prove himself worthy of his nine-figure transfer fee or not, he has taken significant positive strides since then.
We now frequently see the elastic go go gadget legs to pinch possession in unlikely circumstances and he rarely cedes possession while looking for forward passes more often than not. We’re still waiting for really big performances in big games that we should expect from a £100m+ player, but he’s on the right track.
2) Nicolas Jackson (£32m from Villarreal)
His injury coming after a run of eight Premier League games without a goal means there will be widespread calls for Chelsea to sign a big-name striker in the summer, and while we’re not entirely against that idea, we would put a replacement for Jackson a long way down the list of transfer priorities.
He was excellent for the first four months of the season, scoring goals while linking the play, making excellent runs with and without the ball, and being a general menace to opposition defenders. He’s essentially a slightly better version of Darwin Nunez for half the price.
1) Cole Palmer (£40m from Manchester City)
A laughably long way ahead of any other Clearlake addition, he’s one of Chelsea’s best ever Premier League signings. In his 18 months at Stamford Bridge he’s got 39 goals and 21 assists in 72 games, a goal contribution every 97 minutes, with his market value soaring to £109m from a starting point of £26.5m.
He’s one of the most Worth The Entrance Fee Alone footballers in European football and we’re entirely besotted by his carefree brilliance that makes the mostly dire Chelsea performances of late palatable as an extraordinary Palmer moment never feels too far away.
