Brighton spent around £195million under Graham Potter in his three and a bit seasons on the south coast. Chelsea spent comfortably more than that in January alone.
Break it down even more, and it's almost exactly the same price Chelsea paid for Enzo Fernandez, Wesley Fofana (signed before Potter joined) and David Datro Fofana. Add in Christopher Nkunku and Chelsea have paid out more than double in transfer fees for players under Todd Boehly's joint ownership than Potter saw leave the Amex Stadium.
There's more. Brighton in their entire history have spent less than Boehly on transfers at Chelsea in the past nine months. The Blues' January spending is more than Brentford FC, ever.
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Chelsea have also spent more than Europe's top five leagues combined and whilst the financial outlay on players since 2020 has largely gone down due to Covid, Chelsea have continued to spend. Since 2020 the Blues have signed 12 players for more than £40million.
The easy thing to say is that for all this spending they are sat 10th in the league (ironically behind both Brighton and Brentford) and struggling on the field. Eight of those 12 are yet to play more than 20 games for the club though, five have started fewer than five games, and three haven't played at all.
The financial might has been well documented, as has the depth Chelsea have. Their squad is currently valued by Transfermarkt to be worth £933million, while it is also worth noting that the club's previous record signing Romelu Lukaku is not included in this and would add an extra £97.5million.
That is the value of all players and includes £204million worth of academy players who cost nothing in transfer fees. This leaves £729million as the current market value for a group that took £934million to buy. It isn't a great reflection on the work done but doesn't take into account the growth of players and the amount of years they have been at the club. It is just a basic reflection of cost against value on a metric.
That being taken into account, this is the most expensive lineup that Chelsea could field
Most expensive Chelsea XI: (3-4-3) Kepa (£72m); Wesley Fofana (£70m), Kalidou Koulibaly (£35m), Marc Cucurella (£62m); Malo Gusto (£26.8m), Enzo Fernandez (£106m), Mateo Kovacic (£40m), Ben Chilwell (£52m); Mykhailo Mudryk (£62m), Christian Pulisic (£64m), Kai Havertz (£71m)
There are a few points to make. There are cases of more expensive players being purchased but for the sake of argument it has been kept to a feasible lineup. We have also ditched Potter's plans to use Raheem Sterling at wing-back, though he would be the eighth-most expensive player in the lineup.
Total: £660.6million
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