No-One Knows How Many Chelsea FC Players Are On Loan

33? 32? 500?

Chelsea FC’s loan army has become either a bit of joke or a cult icon, depending on who you ask. Over the last few seasons, the Blues have been dispatching an obscene amount of young and/or unwanted talent to random clubs dotted around Europe. However, no-one seems to really know how many are actually away this campaign.

The battalion has been in the news recently for a couple of reasons. Speaking to The Sun at the Call of Duty: Black Ops III launch event, Patrick Bamford revealed that the club had set up a WhatsApp group for all the players out on loan.

"The loan department set it up and let people in. Sometimes it drains your battery when everyone is messaging each other."

While this is ridiculously amusing in itself, let’s return to the focus of this article. The paper stated that it allowed all 34 loanees to keep in touch.

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That’s one point for 34 then.

Sky Sports, meanwhile, has run a piece about the loan stars and how they’ve been getting on. However, the Premier League pioneers have their tally at 32.

Lastly, the Metro also carries the Bamford story but claims that there are 33 players out on temporary deals.

So, who should you believe?

Well, evidently recognising the frankly ridiculous situation, Chelsea have a separate page on their website dedicated to listing the players out on loan. That lists totals 33, so I presume that’s the number then.

Not so fast, transfermarkt.co.uk also lists all the loanees, but that only comes to 32. Having cross-checked the pages, Mohamed Salah is the player to not make transfermarkt’s list, quite for what reason I simply don’t know.

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There is also another unanswered question: who is the 34th player who is cited by some publications? Well, after scouring the internet, I have yet to find a credible source that does anything beyond solely mentioning that the Blues have 34 loanees. In fact, The Telegraph deserves a special mention for running an article entitled ‘Where are Chelsea’s 34 on-loan players?’ only to start talking about 33.

With Ruben Loftus-Cheek reportedly angling for a loan move in January, could he be the 34th? Or is he the 35th?

The extent of this confusion does nothing but highlight that Chelsea’s loan army is a tad excessive. The amount of players in the army has reached the point at which calculators and rounding is required.

The idea behind this strategy is two-fold. Several of these players are young promising talents who would benefit from the opportunity to receive first-team football at other clubs. Meanwhile, others are being sent away merely to maintain their sell-on value having been deemed surplus to requirements at Stamford Bridge.

Next: Chelsea FC Technical Director’s Job In Jeopardy

I’ll leave the heavy debate for another day, though. This just popped into my head while procrastinating earlier and hopefully it will provide a slightly humorous diversion to help beat the mid-week blues (see what I did there).

Feel free to share your theories on the mystery 34th man in the comments below.