Chelsea’s Loan History: The Good, the Bad & the Average

With Chelsea securing the loan signing of Joao Felix on a short term deal for the rest of the season for a fee of £9.7million, it got me thinking about all the players we’ve seen in a Chelsea shirt for a short period of time. With Chelsea becoming synonymous with loaning out players, people would be surprised to hear that since the start of the premier league era Chelsea have in fact had 19 players come in on loan with varying degrees of success. For the purpose of this article I am going to discount a couple of emergency goalkeeping loans as well as players that didn’t make an appearance.

This first loan worthy of mention was Craig Forrest, a goalkeeper who played for the Canadian National team 56 times during his career. He joined from Ipswich in 1997 and played a total of three times in the Premier League. During his spell at the club, he recorded two victories, one defeat whilst also keeping one clean sheet. Chelsea did try to make his move permanent, but Ipswich rejected the approach and he then subsequently moved to West Ham where he was very much a reserve team keeper. Overall it is hard to classify his move as successful due to playing for Chelsea so little, but the fact that Chelsea tried to sign him shows there was some concrete interest. He falls into the “average” category.

In the 1999/2000 season Chelsea made two noteworthy loans. The first one was a season long loan for a player that despite not pulling up any trees whilst at the club, became a real established member of the Chelsea team. The Italian Goalkeeper Carlo Cudicini was signed in August 1999 and went on to make just three appearances in all competitions due to the fine form of first choice keeper Ed De Goey, however he impressed the Chelsea hierarchy enough during this time that they signed him in the summer of 2000. He went on to make 142 appearances for Chelsea winning two FA cups, two League cups and two league titles before departing for Tottenham. He was so highly regarded amongst the Chelsea fans that no one begrudged him moving to one of Chelsea’s arch rivals and he still remains a popular figure amongst Chelsea fans, so overall deemed a successful loan due to his permanent transfer after his loan period.

The second loan signing of that season was George Weah who was signed in January 2000 for a six-month loan deal, he came with a big reputation as he was regarded as one of the greatest African players of all time. To highlight his reputation in 1995, Weah was named FIFA World Player of the Year and won the Ballon d'Or, becoming the first and only African player to win these awards. Although past his prime, Weah's time at Chelsea is seen by many fans as a success where he instantly endeared himself to their fans by scoring the winner against rivals Tottenham Hotspur on his debut. His overall statistics were five goals in 15 games and made a starting appearance in the 2000 FA Cup victory against Aston Villa highlighted his importance to the team in the short term. Very much a success in the eyes of the Chelsea fans, even if it's just for the goal against Spurs.

In the 2000/2001 season Chelsea signed the versatile Italian defender Christian Panucci, he was signed with another glowing reputation in Italian football having featured for Inter Milan, Ac Milan and Real Madrid. However, he failed to impress in a Chelsea shirt and only featured ten times for the Blues. His loan period was cut short and he was shipped off to Monaco for the second half of the season so this loan deal is very much seen in a negative light and largely unsuccessful. For someone who showed a lot of promise early in his career, Panucci never seemed to kick on until he ended up at Roma where he would play for eight seasons. Even the most diehard Panucci fanatics could see this was very much a bad deal for all involved. With his slick sideways curtain hairstyle, he did make an impression on some of the female fans at the club, who wished he stayed longer at least to make it onto the annual calendar.

The next group of loan signings are a series of unsuccessful deals for Chelsea, with big names and little output being the main overarching theme. Maniche was signed in January 2006 having played for Mourinho as part of his all-conquering Porto team. In Maniche’s first start for Chelsea, he showed the Blues exactly why they should hold off making his loan permanent when he was sent off on the 17th Minute against West Ham. Thankfully despite his dismal start, Chelsea went on to win 4-1 but Mourinho realized he didn’t need him in the team. The club was able to win the league with Maniche only making 8 appearances in the league and three League cup appearances. Despite showing promise once he left it's fair to say he just couldn’t cut it in the Chelsea shirt. Overall, a real disaster of a loan deal.

On Deadline day 2009, Portuguese journeyman Ricardo Quaresma signed on a six month loan deal to work under Luis Phillip Scolari, however the Brazilian was sacked two days after Quaresma’s debut. This meant that Quaresma’s Chelsea career never really took off as he only made five appearances in total with four of these coming from the bench. Another one to chalk off on the disaster list and thankfully Chelsea didn’t enter the loan market until the 2015/2016 season although they would wish they hadn’t again as these next two entries were both disasters as well.

Radamel Falcao was regarded as one of the best strikers in world football whilst at Atletico Madrid even destroying Chelsea in the Super Cup in 2012. But following his disastrous spell on loan at Manchester United, football fans were shocked that Chelsea decided to sign him on a season long loan deal worth £4 million with the option of a permanent transfer for a fee of £38 million and with a salary of £170,000 a week. To be fair to Falcao there was evidence of a quality player, with some fine touches and even an eye for goal, including his fine finish against Crystal Palace in August. However, injuries restricted him to just twelve appearances all season and the decision to sign him on a permanent deal was not sanctioned as he was sent packing at the end of the season back to Monaco. The second signing was a six month deal for the Brazilian Pato who was once deemed a wonderkid. Pato continued a record as he became the sixth Brazilian to score on his debut following Geovanni, Robinho, Gilberto, Ilan and Willian. That was the only notable highlight of Pato’s Chelsea career. In total he had two appearances for Chelsea, coming off the bench against Aston Villa where he scored and being stripped off the pitch against Swansea seven days later having given a horrific performance and was never seen again in a Chelsea shirt. Very much a disastrous dip in the loan market for both of these once great players.

In the 2018/2019 season two more players were added to Chelsea’s roster as loan signings, the first being Mateo Kovacic in August 2018 on one year contract with an option to buy and January 2019, Gonzalo Higuaín joined on a six-month deal. Both were a relatively mixed bag that season, Kovacic showed promise in his 51 appearances but didn’t manage to score and was part of a funny pattern of then Chelsea manager Maurizio Sarri making the same substitution nearly every game with Barkley coming on for Kovacic or Kovacic coming on for Barkley. Overall he showed enough to the Chelsea hierarchy facing a transfer ban and was subsequently purchased in the summer of 2019. Kovacic has gone on to become a prominent fixture in the Chelsea line up winning the Champions League, the Europa League, the Super Cup and the Club World Cup.

When looking at Gonzalo Higuain it was very much witnessing a player who was past his best, but at least gave his all when he did play. He wasn’t first choice but that season there wasn’t really a first choice striker with Sarri rotating constantly between Morata, Giroud and Higuain. Sarri even reverted to Eden Hazard playing as a false number 9 at times as none of the recognized strikers really made enough of a mark to stake their claim for a continued run up front. Overall his stats for Chelsea that season were 19 appearances in all competitions with a return of five goals, ultimately showing it wasn’t worth signing him on a permanent deal and he was sent back to Juventus. He very much falls into the average category as he did a job but didn’t set the world alight.

The most recent loan deal was the season long signing of Saul from Atletico Madrid, his debut was a sign of things to come for Saul’s stay in London. He started against Aston Villa and gave the ball away so many times in the first half that he was pulled off by Thomas Tuchel and the rest of the season didn’t go much better for him. He received a lot of justified criticism from Chelsea fans as when he started, and despite being hailed as the next big thing at the start of his career at Atletico, it was easy to see why they were happy for him to go out on loan. In total he made 23 appearances but 11 of these were from the substitutes bench and despite registering a goal to his name, this came against Luton Town in the FA cup. Overall he was tidy on the ball at times but his output and impact on the game was very minimal and this was further shown by the fact that this season he has barely played for Atletico since returning there.

This season, Zakaria was signed with very little fanfare but despite having to wait till November to make his Chelsea debut, he has shown some promise and is now part of Chelsea’s first team though this could also be due to the long list of injuries Chelsea are incurring at present. His tidy footwork and ability to break up play has made him an important part of Potter’s teams the last few weeks but this has also coincided with a really bad run of form for Chelsea in general. Although Zakaria hasn’t received much criticism, only time will tell over the next six months whether Zakaria’s Chelsea career will pan out.

Overall Chelsea’s ventures into the loan market haven’t been overly successful and so it begs the question as to whether or not Joao Felix will become a cult favourite such as Carlo Cudicini and George Weah or go the way of Falcao, Pato and Higuian, becoming a striker who came and went quickly without much of a mark.