Chelsea’s 12 weirdest signings of the BlueCo era RANKED: Felix, Aubameyang… | OneFootball

Chelsea have simply never failed to amaze us since their takeover in 2022 by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital’s BlueCo consortium.

Whether it’s been spending unprecedented amounts of money, sacking a manager or doing both in the space of a few weeks, Chelsea have made some big, bold and often rash decisions under their current ownership.

In terms of transfers, there have been some success stories. Cole Palmer was a calculated risk that paid off. Moises Caicedo cost an eye-watering amount, but has been a solid player.

Then there are the obvious failures. Raheem Sterling, Kalidou Koulibaly, Mykhaylo Mudryk, you name them…

And yet there’s a third category of Chelsea signings: the plain weird.

That’s the territory they’re currently leaning into with moves for Jordan Henderson and Danny Welbeck. What year are we in again?

Chelsea have needed more experience, fair enough. But it doesn’t make those specific plans any less bizarre.

We’ve taken a look at the Chelsea signings in the BlueCo era that have most left us scratching our heads to work out what they were thinking.

This isn’t a ranking of who was the best or worst player – it’s a ranking of the most puzzling bits of business.

12. Alejandro Garnacho

A gamble that didn’t work out.

Garnacho had shown flashes of potential at Manchester United, even in his final season there before Chelsea bought him last summer. Worth a shot, right?

Not necessarily, if you factor in his attitude issues and inconsistency.

Chelsea took the risk and were rewarded with just one Premier League goal before shipping him off to Aston Villa on loan.

More of a disappointing signing than a downright weird one, but certainly questionable.

11. Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall

Not to knock Dewsbury-Hall, but he just wasn’t at Chelsea’s level.

He joined in 2024 after a season in the Championship with Leicester City, following manager Enzo Maresca to Stamford Bridge. But it was too much of a step up.

Even having a head-start with the manager’s tactics didn’t help Dewsbury-Hall, who was limited to just a pair of Premier League starts for Chelsea.

He has since found a new lease of life with Everton, at the kind of level that was always more suitable for him.

10. Cesare Casadei

Chelsea showed they were serious about investing in youth straight from the off after the BlueCo takeover, spending more than £16m on a 19-year-old Casadei.

The midfielder hadn’t even made his senior debut for Inter Milan by that point, so it was a bold price to pay.

Casadei managed to make 17 appearances for Chelsea either side of a loan spell with Leicester, where working with Maresca didn’t particularly equip him for a future in west London.

He has since begun to establish himself as a Serie A player back in his homeland with Torino.

9. Filip Jorgensen

The odd thing about this one is that when Chelsea signed Jorgensen in 2024, there were big question marks over Robert Sanchez’s status as number one goalkeeper.

There was clamour for a convincing new starter to come in, and Jorgensen boasted decent metrics from his breakthrough season with Villarreal.

But the Denmark international has failed to adequately challenge Sanchez for his place. The Spaniard has improved, in fairness, but the opposite is true for Jorgensen.

His future at the club is now in jeopardy.

8. Deivid Washington

What was actually the plan?

In Chelsea’s defence, there is logic behind buying prospects for the future. But that logic is diluted if there isn’t a clear vision in place for how some players will eventually be part of their plans.

That’s seemingly the case with Washington, a forward who joined from Santos as an 18-year-old and only made three appearances for the first team in his debut season.

Having spent time in the under-21s and back on loan at Santos, he is yet to add to those three outings.

7. Renato Veiga

Basel to Chelsea is a bit of an unorthodox transfer route, only taken by Mohamed Salah before Veiga in 2024.

The Portugal international had been playing mainly in midfield for Basel. Chelsea primarily put him at left-back. Then, all of a sudden, he decided he wanted to be a centre-half.

And so, Veiga left Chelsea after half a season for a loan spell with Juventus, before being sold to Villarreal.

Definitely some miscommunication behind this one.

6. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang

Signing an in-form Barcelona striker with previous Premier League pedigree who’s also played for your manager before? Not so weird.

Sacking that manager, who was such a big factor in the signing, less than a week later? Bit weird.

Aubameyang flopped after his brief reunion with Thomas Tuchel in 2022, only scoring once in the Premier League before leaving the following summer.

It makes it hard to justify Chelsea’s vision for their £10.3m Aubameyang deal.

5. Diego Moreira

We could have included any of the plethora of players BlueCo have moved between Chelsea and Strasbourg to illustrate this point, but Moreira’s case was especially odd.

Signed from Benfica in 2023 after just two first-team appearances, Moreira played in one Carabao Cup game for Chelsea before being loaned out to Lyon.

Chelsea recalled him in January 2024, but didn’t give him any more appearances. That summer, he was offloaded to Strasbourg.

The wide man has made an impression in France, but his handling by Chelsea was unusual.

4. Denis Zakaria

Once upon a time, Zakaria was one of the most coveted midfielders in Europe. That time was already in the past when Chelsea signed him on loan in 2022.

A move to Juventus that January hadn’t worked out, so Chelsea took a chance. However, Zakaria didn’t get his Premier League debut until after Christmas.

All in all, he only played 11 times for the club and wasn’t kept on.

“It feels a little panicky at this point,” said German journalist Raphael Honigstein of Chelsea’s deadline-day capture of the former Borussia Monchengladbach man. “For instance, I like Zakaria but I want to know the thinking process.

“How do you go from targeting Frenkie de Jong to signing Zakaria on the last day?”

3. Mathis Amougou

You’d be forgiven for not really remembering Amougou at Chelsea. He only played twice for the club, for 22 minutes, after a February 2025 move from Saint-Etienne.

Although an eight-year contract was handed to the midfielder, he was sold five months after his arrival. To Strasbourg, of course.

Chelsea had reportedly been tracking Amougou for a couple of years before they snapped him up. But he was never seen as an immediate option for the first team by then-manager Maresca.

“We didn’t sign him thinking he is going to play an important part with us,” the Italian said, before explaining his way out of it when he might as well have just stopped there.

2. Joao Felix

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” so the famous saying goes.

Or, in other words, insanity is signing Joao Felix for a second time when he wasn’t that great the first time around.

With four goals from 20 games, his time on loan over the second half of the 2022-23 season wasn’t excruciatingly bad, if we’re being fair.

But he was underwhelming and Chelsea chose not to explore a permanent deal for Felix.

Except that a year later, they did. Freshly available after a loan spell with Barcelona, Chelsea signed the attacker as Conor Gallagher headed in the opposite direction.

The sale of an academy graduate like Gallagher frustrated some Chelsea fans, but not as much as Felix’s subsequent performances did.

Just six months later and he was out again, shipped off to AC Milan on loan after failing to force his way into Chelsea’s plans.

He did manage to stat-pad with a few goals in the Conference League for Chelsea, but only scored once in the Premier League after his return.

1. Facundo Buonanotte

Quite how Chelsea thought Buonanotte was going to find a way into their team in attacking midfield is still baffling.

Even weirder was Brighton boss Fabian Hurzeler’s justification of the move: “This is a great opportunity for Facundo to play regular Premier League and Champions League football this season and further his development.”

Regular Premier League and Champions League football, you say? How about one 45-minute cameo in the former and three appearances in the latter, after being left out of the initial squad list?

Buonanotte’s deadline-day loan move was cancelled six months ahead of schedule so he could join Leeds instead, where he also struggled for gametime.

A wasted season, which Chelsea played their part in.