Garnacho flops in ranking of all 37 BlueCo signings at Chelsea

March 1, 2026
3:08 pm

The BlueCo project appeared to be on the right path after a horribly rocky start when at the end of last season Enzo Maresca led Chelsea to two (sort of) trophies while securing Champions League football.

But the Italian got a bit too big for his boots and was mutually consented out of the door to be replaced by Liam Rosenior, who has become the fifth permanent manager in less than four seasons under a group of owners who arrived insisting upon an end to the Stamford Bridge saloon door style or manager turnover.

Rosenior is now charged with leading the current set of hugely talented but woefully inexperienced stars – the cream of the £1.5bn crop signed under BlueCo – to tangible success for a football club that won five Premier League titles in 13 seasons but none in the last nine.

They’re still much further away than they were when Todd Boehly and co. rode into town. Largely because of some horrible transfers and we’ve ranked all of the signings made under the now not-so-new Chelsea chiefs from worst to obvious best.

37) Mykhaylo Mudryk (£62m, Shakhtar Donetsk)

The transfer poster boy of the early 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 still suspended having failed a drugs test.

36) Kalidou Koulibaly (£33m, 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.

35) Raheem Sterling (£50m, Manchester City)

He was actually very good for Chelsea for a very brief period, but it all went to sh*t when Maresca arrived and decided Sterling wasn’t for him; a wise choice based on his form at Arsenal and his struggles to find a new team before landing at Feyenoord.

34) Joao Felix (£44.5m, Atletico Madrid)

Did very little at Chelsea on loan in the second half of the 2022/2023 season and even less in his permanent stint, 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 but one that incredibly may not end up harming the balance sheet assuming the £15m-odd of add-ons are being achieved following his £30m summer move to Al Nassr, for whom he has 19 goals and 12 assists in 33 appearances.

33) Axel Disasi (£39m, Monaco)

West Ham have conceded just one goal in the three games Disasi has started at centre-back following his January move. He’s a perfectly decent defender and not a whole lot worse than many of the centre-backs preferred at Chelsea since he joined, but that’s damning with faint praise and that was mad money to spend on him

32) David Datro Fofana (£10m, Molde)

He looked pretty good for Burnley for a while 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 last season and now for sister club Strasbourg. Never playing for Chelsea again.

31) Facundo Buonanotte (loan, Brighton)

A lovely footballer to watch but not one single person, Buonanotte included, believed he would do anything in his very brief – and in the end curtailed – time at Chelsea to merit that stint being extended.

30) Romeo Lavia (£58m, Southampton)

A very classy midfielder who could easily be worth a nine-figure sum if it weren’t for a horrific run of injuries which has seen feature for just 1,300 minutes since joining in the summer of 2023. For reference, Moises Caicedo has played over 11,000 minutes for Chelsea in that time.

29) Christopher Nkunku (£53m, RB Leipzig)

18 goals at a rate of one every 150 minutes doesn’t sound all that bad but was almost entirely down to some Conference League stat-padding and Chelsea did pretty well to get £32m from AC Milan for a player who essentially moped through two seasons at Stamford Bridge.

28) Jadon Sancho (loan, Manchester United)

He was alright, as he’s currently being for Aston Villa, but Chelsea paying Manchester United a £5m penalty rather than coming good on their £25m obligation to buy the winger is damning.

27) Kiernan-Dewsbury Hall (£30m, 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?’

There are few better Premier League marriages than KDH and Everton.

26) Filip Jorgensen (£20.7m, Villarreal)

He’s fine 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 that already is.

25) Carney Chukwuemeka (£16m, Aston Villa)

We half expected him to be the new Jude Bellingham following his £24m move to Borussia Dortmund after Maresca snubbed him despite the midfielder looking more than capable whenever he was given brief opportunities. Just six Bundesliga starts this season suggests the former boss and the sporting directors who agreed to his sale had it about right.

24) Benoit Badiashile (£33m, 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.

23) Lesley Ugochukwu (£23m, Rennes)

15 hugely underwhelming appearances for Chelsea and similarly bang-average displays on loan at Southampton last season somehow persuaded Burnley to hand the Blues a tidy profit on their investment if we’re to assume – as we must – that Armando Broja cost no more than £20m in the double-deal. An extraordinary bit of business, that.

22) Jamie Gittens (£48.5m, Borussia Dortmund)

He’s done some good things – a stunner against Wolves in the League Cup, a nice assist in defeat at Leeds – but still feels nailed on to be the next young forward to drown in stagnant pool of attacking talent that Stamford Bridge has become in the BlueCo era.

21) Marc Guiu (£5m, Barcelona)

Eight goals and two assists – albeit mainly in the Conference League last season – is good going and Chelsea will definitely make a little bit of money on the 20-year-old.

20) Alejandro Garnacho (£40m, Manchester United)

A ‘finisher’ at best under Rosenior, who’s not started Garnacho in the Premier League since his first game against Brentford and leaving him on the bench for three of the other six suggests he’s as unconvinced of his future at Stamford Bridge as the rest of us are.

Chelsea will hope to at least get their money back when he’s confirmed as not meeting the standard, very possibly at the end of this season.

19) Liam Delap (£30m, Ipswich Town)

He’s not the guy, is he? He’s got two goals and four assists in over 1000 minutes of football and half of those goal contributions came against Hull City.

18) Jorrel Hato (£37m, Ajax)

He’s looked like a bag of nerves at times, but is still a teenager and you can see exactly why Arsenal fancied him before Chelsea came calling as a centre-back-cum-full-back-cum-defensive-midfielder in the mould of Jurrien Timber.

17) Djordje Petrovic (£12m, New England Revolution)

Signed when his value was just £5m in 2023, Bournemouth bought the £17m-rated goalkeeper for £25m two years later. Excellent work.

16) Wesley Fofana (£71m, Leicester City)

Very clearly Chelsea’s best centre-back when a) fit, and b) not suspended having become the latest Blues player to cost them through a red card. Can’t be considered a good signing at that price having made just 60 appearances in three-and-a-half seasons.

15) Tosin Adarabioyo (free transfer, 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.

14) Robert Sanchez (£25m, Brighton)

He’s been more good than bad this season having miraculously retained his position as first-choice Chelsea goalkeeper for most of the previous two campaigns. But mostly he’s mediocre, and as proven by the two stoppers tending goal in the teams vying for the title, that’s not going to cut it.

13) Renato Veiga (£11.8m, Basel)

We really liked what we saw of him and it was very odd given how much Chelsea struggled at the back that Maresca didn’t even try Veiga in his preferred position. The 22-year-old felt he had little choice but to leave, first for Juventus on loan and then in a £24m permanent move to Villarreal, for whom he’s playing a key role in what looks very likely to be a successful return to the Champions League.

We suspect we haven’t seen the last of Veiga on these shores, but doubling your money on a player who wasn’t really playing and doesn’t want to be there has got to be a positive.

12) Mamadou Sarr (£12m Strasbourg)

“His nickname is Mamadou Rosenior, he’s my son,” Rosenior said when Sarr starred under him at Strasbourg last year. He looked refreshingly adept for a Chelsea centre-back on his debut – albeit against Hull – and composed enough to suggest Liverpool’s January hijcak of Chelsea might actually be to the Blues’ benefit, for this season at least.

11) Pedro Neto (£51m, Wolves)

It took him a long time to get going and although he now has, with ten goals and five assists a perfectly reasonable return this season, Neto is the sort of player that will always leave you wanting, with his contribution rarely matching his outstanding attributes.

10) Nicolas Jackson (£32m, Villarreal)

Received undue criticism through much of his time at Chelsea before making his record-breaking loan move to Bayern Munich. Will presumably be sold for a tidy profit in the summer, but Jackson was a net positive in his time at Stamford Bridge despite some suspect finishing at times, for the way he allowed Cole Palmer to blossom as much as anything.

9) Noni Madueke (£31m, PSV Eindhoven)

A very good footballer but in moments too rare to make him great, as has proven to be the case at Arsenal. Chelsea have essentially got Estevao and £20m for Madueke and there won’t be a single Blues fan disappointed with that business.

8) Malo Gusto (£31m, Lyon)

A skilful, quick, versatile full-back who rarely puts a foot wrong and looks likely to be starting for France at the World Cup. Chelsea might just have the best right-back options in the Premier League.

7) Joao Pedro (£60m, Brighton)

He might just be the guy. Only Erling Haaland (22) and Igor Thiago (17) have scored more than his 11 Premier League goals this season and he also tops the Chelsea assist charts with four.

Pedro had a reputation as a big-game player at Brighton and his goal in the Club Word Cup final win over Paris Saint-Germain and his brace against Napoli in that crucial Champions League game suggests he has kept that knack at Chelsea.

6) Andrey Santos (£13m, Vasco da Gama)

Already valued at £35m and we suspect Santos will be worth significantly more than that at the end of a season in which Rosenior looks set to keep counting on him, and for good reason – he’s a very fine all-round midfielder whose expertise lie in threading passes through the lines. He could easily end up playing a big role for Brazil at the World Cup too.

5) Marc Cucurella (£58m, Brighton)

He set an incredibly low bar in his debut season, but Cucurella’s performances in the last 18 months or so have turned doubters laughing at his transfer fee into believers wondering if there are many better left-backs in Europe. Very, very consistent and evidently an absolute pr*ck to play against.

4) Enzo Fernandez (£107m, Benfica)

It’s now very easy to see how he was a key part of Argentina’s World Cup winning team. There might not be a better midfielder at arriving in the box in the Premier League and he’s played at such a high level during Cole Palmer’s absence that the England international is now more often than not playing from the right wing under Rosenior.

3) Estevao (Palmeiras, £29m)

Chelsea may only have had two other players in the Premier League era to force bums off seats whenever they got the ball as Estevao does: Arjen Robben and Eden Hazard.

Esteemed company indeed and while this is a horribly overused phrase – as proven by Joe Cole attributing it to Garnacho earlier this month – the sky is genuinely the limit for Estevao.

2) Moises Caicedo (£115m, Brighton)

Gary Neville’s “billion pound bottlejobs” jibe that was clearly aimed primarily at him and midfield partner Enzo Fernandez is now ancient history, with Caicedo’s name now in every conversation about the very best midfielders in the Premier League and his price tag never mentioned.

1) Cole Palmer (£40m, Manchester City)

One of Chelsea’s best ever Premier League signings, let alone in the BlueCo era.

In an injury-hampered season he’s still got nine goals and three assists in a little over 1200 minutes. He’s got 52 goals and 32 assists in 116 Chelsea appearances in total, a goal contribution every 108 minutes, and is now valued at £105m from a starting point of £26m when he arrives at Stamford Bridge.

But none of those stats or figures compare to how he makes us feel, y’know?

BlueCo, Chelsea, flops, Garnacho, ranking, signings