Chelsea must regret selling “all-time great”

Chelsea had another busy January transfer window, but instead of plenty of incomings, it was very departure-focused, with Cesare Casadei being sold, and six players being loaned out, with Axel Disasi, João Félix, Renato Veiga, Carney Chukwuemeka, Ben Chillwell and Caleb Wiley all heading out the door.

The Blues have spent heavily in the past, but in order to do so, they have always been relatively good at extracting good fees for their own players, whether it is youth academy products, top talents who have just tipped over their prime, or even players who have struggled for form.

Chelsea have the highest net spend in the past five seasons, with a -€924.86m (-£773.8m), making some big sales in order to fund their squad rebuild, signing the most talented youngsters from around the world, looking to kick-start their new era.

But as we mentioned, this isn’t necessarily a new thing, as Chelsea have always been good at making timely sales to reinvest their funds. However, with this, of course, comes the odd mistake of selling someone who goes on to become a world beater, and there are a few examples of that for the South West London club.

Chelsea’s biggest mistakes when selling players

One of the biggest transfer mistakes in Chelsea’s history was letting Kevin De Bruyne leave to join Wolfsburg in Germany back in 2014, after signing the Belgian from Genk in 2012. The reported fee he was sold for was around £16.7m, after only making nine appearances for the Blues.

However, just 18 months later, Manchester City then purchased De Bruyne for a fee of around £54.5m, becoming the second-highest fee paid by a British club at the time. The 33-year-old has gone on to win six Premier League titles, making 406 appearances, scoring 104 goals, providing 173 assists and totalling 30,006 minutes played.

Another player the Blues sold in 2018 for a fee of around £35m, was Thibaut Courtois, who joined Real Madrid that summer. The Belgian shot-stopper made 154 appearances for Chelsea, keeping 58 clean sheets and conceding 152 goals.

The 32-year-old has gone on to become one of the best goalkeepers in the world, whilst Chelsea are struggling to decide on their number one, with Robert Sanchez currently in error-stricken form, and a host of other young options yet to fully prove themselves.

The biggest blunder Chelsea have made

There is one more sale that could perhaps be the worst in their history, which came in 2016, as the Blues let go of a player for a fee of around £15m, who then returned to haunt them in the Premier League from 2017 onwards.

It is, of course, Mohamed Salah who joined Chelsea from Basel in 2014 for a fee of around £11m, going on to make just 19 appearances for the Blues, scoring two goals, providing three assists and totalling 882 minutes. Due to his lack of playing time, the Egyptian went on a few loans to Serie A, before moving on a permanent deal to Roma in 2016.

But much like the De Bruyne case, just one year after leaving Chelsea on a permanent deal, Liverpool decided to sneak in, completing the £34.3m signing of Salah. The rest is history as the Egyptian has gone on to make 382 appearances for the Reds, scoring 236 goals and providing 105 assists, becoming a Premier League legend.

When comparing Salah to Chelsea’s two right-wing options this season, Noni Madueke and Pedro Neto, you can see the 32-year-old is, unsurprisingly, simply on another level, doubling their goal and assist output, having the best goals/shot ratio, still producing the most creative actions with key passes and shot-creating actions, whilst being the primary goalscorer for his side.

Even in the few areas that Salah doesn’t rank top, such as progressive carries (topped by Madueke), shots per 90 (topped by Madueke) and successful take-ons (topped by both Chelsea wingers), the margins are extremely close, whereas many of the areas Salah dominates in, he is clear of the others.

The decision to sell him is compounded by the fact that Salah is outscoring every single Chelsea player this season too, even Cole Palmer, who has been a revelation for the Blues.

Palmer has netted 39 goals in 71 appearances since joining Chelsea in 2023. Over the same time frame, Salah has scored 50 goals in 77 outings, currently leading the Premier League for both goals and assists throughout 2024/25.

His ex-Liverpool coach, Jürgen Klopp, labelled Salah an “all-time great” when praising his “absolutely exceptional” goal tally, and naming him one of the best players he has ever coached. The complexion of Klopp’s great Liverpool attack, including Salah, Sadio Mané and Roberto Firmino could have been very different had the Blues never let go of the Egypt international.

With Enzo Maresca at Chelsea, the wingers have very important roles, looking to help the team defend when in deeper areas, allowing the fullbacks to shift more centrally, but then having to stretch the pitch high and wide when they are on the ball, looking to isolate fullbacks in 1v1 scenarios, and provide goals and assists for the team.

Madueke has shown he has the ability to score goals for Chelsea from wide areas, arriving in the box on time, but Salah has clearly become the master of providing G/A (goals + assists) from wide areas, which ultimately begs the question as to how different things would be if he stayed at Stamford Bridge.