7 players sold by Chelsea who currently play for their Premier League rivals
A lot has been said about the number of players who go out on loan from Chelsea every season and year after year the emphasis is always on these players not getting their chances with Chelsea’s first team.
I believe, Chelsea have done well to guarantee some playing time for their best young players they sign by sending them on loans and kudos to their scouting team because they’ve unearthed a lot of gems over the years.
Their loan system has ensured the continued growth of many youngsters and Thibaut Courtois has even gone on to become a first-team player.
But the fact remains that very few players get the chance to play for Chelsea. In fact, five out of the seven players on this list have had a spell away on loan when they were a Chelsea player but none of them cemented their place in the first team.
However, these five players and two other ex-Chelsea players were good enough to play for Chelsea’s Premier League rivals Arsenal, Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool and Spurs.
#1 Romelu Lukaku - Manchester United
Romelu Lukaku signed for Chelsea in 2011 as a promising teenager who was in love with the club and idolised Didier Drogba. However, his debut season with the Blues didn’t turn out to be the best due to managerial changes which limited his playing time severely.
Lukaku spent two seasons on loan away from Chelsea in the Premier League. His first was with West Brom where he scored 17 goals including a hat-trick against Manchester United in Sir Alex Ferguson’s last game in charge of the club.
After his loan spell with West Brom, he spent three seasons at Everton of which one was on a loan basis and in those three seasons, Lukaku scored 71 goals in just 133 games. During his last season with Everton, he scored 25 league goals which was the second-highest in the league behind Harry Kane.
It is beyond me why Chelsea never inserted a buy-back clause when they sold Lukaku to Everton, but the Belgian was a well-known target for Chelsea before his move to Man Utd.