Chelsea: Loan army less top-heavy as most valuable loanees stay Blues

Chelsea greatly reduced the size of their loan army this summer, bringing it back to the size of the early 2010s. They also either sold or brought into the team the most valuable players, after last season’s peak value of players stashed away.

Tiemoue Bakayoko and Mario Pasalic are Chelsea’s two representatives among the 50 most valuable loanees in the top-five European leagues, ranking 11th and 21st, respectively, by CIES Football Observatory’s valuation. At £33.3 million, Bakayoko’s estimated transfer value is just over one-third Philippe Coutinho’s and one-half of Dani Ceballos’, the top two players on the list. Well behind Pasalic’s €24.8 million are Lewis Baker, Kenedy, Ethan Ampadu and Davide Zappacosta, who range from €7.5 million down to €5.1 million.

Had CIES performed this evaluation last season, the Blues would have had many more loanees among the top 50.

The 50th player on this season’s list is worth €10.7 million. In 2018/19, Chelsea had Bakayoko, Michy Batshuayi, Kurt Zouma and Tammy Abraham all on loan for the full season with transfer values of €20 million or more, while Alvaro Morata and Christian Pulisic were on loan for the second half. Kenedy, Pasalic and Ola Aina would have been right near the cut-off, as all were on loan to big-five leagues and had transfer estimates right around €10 million. Victor Moses was also on loan and worth €10 million, but in the Turkish Super Lig.

The 10 loanees worth €10 million or more made the 2018/19 loan army the most top heavy in club history.

Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Marco van Ginkel joined Batshuayi, Zouma, Abraham and Kenedy in the over-€10 million club for the 2017/18 season. The Blues only had two or three such players on loan in the preceding three seasons. In 2013/14, they had five players worth more than €10 million on loan: Thibaut Courtois, Romelu Lukaku, Kevin de Bruyne, Thorgan Hazard and Michael Essien.

Many of Chelsea’s most valuable loanees over the last seven years did several stints on loan. Kurt Zouma and Thorgan Hazard each did three loans while worth over €10 million. Eight other such players had two each.

Hazard, Marco van Ginkel, Tammy Abraham and Victor Moses are unusual among these loanees for building and maintaining these valuations while at clubs outside of the big-five leagues.

Chelsea cut the size of their loan army over the summer by selling many of the longest-serving loanees. They sold nearly three times as much loan experience than in any other window. But of the players with three or more loans who were sold last summer, none went for over €10 million. Tomas Kalas was the most expensive at €9 million. The most expensive loanee sale was Ola Aina, whose transfer fee was part of his loan contract with Torino.

Nathan Ake is the most expensive multiple loanee of the last decade. Chelsea sold him for €22.8 million. But he does not appear in our discussion above because his end-of-season valuation never went over €8 million.

At the other end, the Blues brought more loanees into the first-team than ever before. Kurt Zouma, Michy Batshuayi, Tammy Abraham and Andreas Christensen all made several appearances in our list of loanees worth over €10 million. The first three are regulars in the first team, and Christensen was for two years before being sidelined by injury this year.

In any other year, Mason Mount, Fikayo Tomori and Reece James would likely find themselves in CIES Football Observatory’s list than the Chelsea first-team roster.

One limitation in our cut-rate analysis here is not factoring in inflation. Ten million euros just isn’t what it used to be in the market. A more precise accounting for the relative value of the top end of Chelsea’s loan army would account for either currency inflation or transfer market inflation (e.g., a player’s fee or value as a percentage of the highest fee that window).

But the fact that Chelsea had five players worth over €10 million on loan in 2013/14 and six in 2016/17 suggests it is a reasonable benchmark, at least for those years. There is not any heavy trend one way or the other that would imply inflation had a bigger role than squad management.

The Blues are simply using the loan army for its actual purpose: giving young players a chance to develop so they can rise into the first team, ready to play.