Roman's decade at Chelsea - The best and worst transfers

Roman Abramovich

10 years ago, before the final league match against Liverpool, the news was broken to the players in the Chelsea dressing room – If the club is to survive in the EPL, we need to qualify for the Champions League, we need that revenue – the players though knew the condition of the club already, realized it more than ever that they are about to play the biggest match of their Chelsea career yet. And they delivered!

2 teams vying for the final Champions League slot, playing against each other on the final day.

Even after being 1-0 down in the first 20 minutes, veteran captain Marcel Desailly kept his head up (literally) and headed in the equalizer minutes later from Gronkjaer’s corner. A draw would have been enough for Chelsea to sneak through on goal difference, but a strike from Gronkjaer settled it straight and fair.

Players were happy. Though they knew they might be facing the same danger next season, they were happy that they have literally saved the club from going into administration and a demotion to the Championship for this season.

But little did they know, the win had caught the eye of a certain Russian going by the name of Roman Abramovich. That win convinced Roman enough to invest what is going to be the biggest investment in a Premier League club ever. The investment certainly changed the fortunes of Chelsea Football Club; transfers, wages, infrastructure, publicity, fan base all have improved since that day and are still on the rise. And Chelsea this month celebrated a decade of Roman’s era.

Looking back at these 10 years, I thought about giving a look at the most visible impact that was seen as a result of the takeover – Player Transfer. So, here are what I think are the 5 worst and the 5 best buys of Roman’s era.

Worst Buys:

1. Shaun Wright-Phillips -

Shaun Wright-Phillips

By far, Wright-Phillips is the worst signing for Chelsea in the past 10 years. One would also remember the sting operation on the then England manager Sven Goran Eriksson where he also stated that Shaun is bought at a price way above his playing ability. 3 years in the club, yet he didn’t even play 100 matches for Chelsea, and scored 4 goals in all for the club – a sheer waste of 24 million GBP I would say.