Chelsea's current back five cost a total of £27.5 million
It's an interesting fact that the current Chelsea back five that continue to remain the best defensive unit in the country and the most well organised, in combined transfer fees cost Chelsea a total of £27.5 million.
Thibaut Courtois = £5m from Genk in 2011, John Terry = £0 through the club’s academy, Branislav Ivanovic = £9m from Lokomotiv Moscow in 2008, Gary Cahill = £7m from Bolton 2012 and Cesar Azpilicueta = £6.5m from Marseille in 2012.
You only have to look at Manchester City and PSG throwing the amount of monies they did for the likes of Mangala (£32m) and David Luiz (£50m) to see how well Chelsea's recruitment process over the years has been.
It's staggering to think that the with all the plaudits we have received from the pundits in the game about us being the best-organised defence, the toughest to break down and having three of the four positions filled in the Premier League team of the year, that we had signed each player within our current back five for an average of £5.5m.
We have had to endure claims that we have “bought the league” or have just “thrown money at our problem areas” ever since Roman Abramovich took over the club. In some cases, I guess people have a point only to a certain extent.
However, you cannot deny just how well Chelsea as a club have done to sign these players (or bring them through the Academy in John Terry's case), to develop them and to make them the defensive force they are.