Ranking every Chelsea signing under Todd Boehly from worst to best with £1billion spent

· FootballLondon

With Todd Boehly leaving Chelsea this week, we thought we'd look back at every signing the American made to rank them from worst to best

And so, the Todd Boehly era is officially over - closing one of the most chaotic, baffling, and high-spending chapters in Chelsea's history. The American billionaire, who served as chairman for the last four years, has now sold his stake to majority owner Clearlake Capital, handing full control of the club to the private equity firm led by Behdad Eghbali.

Despite serving as the public face of Chelsea's wild post-Abramovich transition, the truth is that Boehly's actual influence at the club had been waning for some time. Following behind-the-scenes clashes with Clearlake over managerial appointments, recruitment strategy, and stadium redevelopment, he gradually drifted out of day-to-day operations.

That was hardly the case at the beginning. Between 2022 and 2024, Boehly sat front and centre. Acting as interim sporting director during his first summer, he spearheaded an aggressive teardown and rebuild - eventually splashing over £1billion on players in a radical attempt to turn Chelsea into an algorithm-driven, spreadsheet-powered transfer powerhouse.

Though co-sporting directors were later brought in to handle the mechanics, Boehly's initial blitz set off an unprecedented spending spree. Across that frantic period, Chelsea brought in a staggering 31 signings. Here, we'vee attempted to rank each signing from worst to best.

31. Mykhailo Mudryk

Mykhailo Mudryk will go down as one of the costliest blunders in Chelsea's history - which is really saying something for a club that famously broke the bank to sign Fernando Torres, Romelu Lukaku and Andriy Shevchenko.

The Ukrainian offered up an electric, heart-racing debut at Anfield in January 2023 and... well, that was pretty much it. Ever since, he's looked timid, bewildered, and desperately short of the pizzazz you'd expect from a guy Chelsea agreed to potentially pay £89million for.

To top it all off, a doping ban left Chelsea stuck with a wildly expensive passenger they couldn't play or sell. Now he's out on loan at Tottenham - of all places - and unless he pulls off a proper miracle in North London, his Stamford Bridge career looks dead and buried. What a waste of money.

30. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang

What an absolute circus this was. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was parachuted in purely at the request of Thomas Tuchel, who desperately needed a striker after his explosive fallout with Romelu Lukaku. The pair had worked wonders together at Dortmund, so it felt like a cozy reunion. The punchline? Boehly sacked Tuchel literally days later.

Enter Graham Potter, who didn't seem to fancy the Gabon international in the slightest, choosing to play Kai Havertz as a makeshift No. 9 instead. Before long, Aubameyang wasn't even bothering to hide his buyer's remorse, looking like a guy who deeply regretted answering his phone. He trudged through the season with a grand total of one Premier League goal in 15 games and was even unceremoniously chopped from Chelsea’s Champions League knockout squad.

Less than a year after dropping £10 million to sign him, Chelsea let him walk away on a free transfer. In many ways, this move was the ultimate poster child for the early Boehly era: zero foresight, pure chaos, and a very pricey headache.

29. David Datro Fofana

David Datro Fofana never really looked like Premier League material. Snapped up from Molde for £10m in January 2023, the Ivorian striker made four supremely forgettable appearances before vanishing straight into Chelsea's bottomless loan abyss.

What followed was a dizzying world tour - with moves to Union Berlin, Burnley, Goztepe, Fatih Karagumruk and sister club Strasbourg, none of which yielded much to write home about. Having accumulated far more air miles than goals, he was finally quietly offloaded to Swiss side Servette for just £2.1m. Not Chelsea's most expensive blunder, but a blunder nonetheless.

28. Christopher Nkunku

To be fair, Nkunku's £52m deal was actually ironed out before Boehly took the wheel, but the Frenchman still stands out as one of the BlueCo era's pricier missteps.

A brutal pre-season knee injury wiped out a big chunk of his debut season. By the time he finally limped back to fitness, Nicolas Jackson had firmly claimed the main striker spot as his own. Nkunku was left playing second fiddle, with his primary claim to fame being a modest seven-goal spree across 11 games in Chelsea's 2024/25 Conference League campaign - hardly the main-stage magic they had paid for.

Ultimately, he never looked - or played - like the bona fide superstar Chelsea thought they'd bagged. AC Milan eventually took him off their hands for £36m last year; a surprisingly decent recovery fee for a player who never really got going, but still a heavy loss on the original investment.

27. Jimmy-Jay Morgan

Chelsea dropped around £6m to snatch Jimmy-Jay Morgan from Southampton's academy back in 2023. Fresh off making Saints' bench for an FA Cup tie, the young attacking midfielder opted to head back to Stamford Bridge, where he'd previously spent three years as a schoolboy.

Unfortunately, the homecoming proved to be a whole lot of nothing. Morgan largely kicked his heels in academy limbo before being shipped off to League Two club Gillingham in 2025, followed by another loan stint at Peterborough. He was finally sold off to West Brom on a permanent deal this summer.

With the Baggies handing over roughly £4 million, Chelsea effectively ate a £2 million loss on a kid who never got anywhere near the first-team dressing room.

26. Deivid Washington

Chelsea shelled out a hefty £17.2m to snatch Brazilian starlet Deivid Washington from Santos. He managed to scratch together three first-team appearances under Mauricio Pochettino, but Enzo Maresca's arrival promptly sent him sliding way down the pecking order.

Following a brief, thoroughly unremarkable loan spell back at Santos, Washington was quietly moved along to Chelsea's sister club Strasbourg for roughly £7m this summer. That left the Blues swallowing a cool £10m loss on the books - though hey, at least he actually made it onto the pitch for the senior team!

25. Ishe Shamuels-Smith

Yet another youngster signed seemingly for the sole purpose of playing spreadsheet gymnastics, Ishe Samuels-Smith joined from Everton for a reported £4m in 2023.

Naturally, he never made a single senior appearance for Chelsea. A quiet loan stint at Swansea last season brought a grand total of six outings, and he was packed off to League One side Notts County this summer.

He's still technically on the books for now, but he looks well on his way to becoming another low-profile punt that ultimately just ate up time and money.

24. Alex Matos

Chelsea spotted a low-risk opportunity for a free-transfer gamble when they snapped up Alex Matos in 2023. The defensive midfielder actually managed a couple of first-team cameos - including a brief Premier League outing in October 2023 - before the reality of the step up set in.

Loan spells at Huddersfield Town and Oxford United effectively confirmed that the Championship was his ceiling. Chelsea eventually flipped him to Sheffield United for £1m. Hey, pure profit is pure profit!

23. Gabriel Slonina

There was considerable buzz around "Gaga" Slonina when Chelsea dropped £8.3m to snatch him from Chicago Fire in 2022. After all, the US has a fine tradition of exporting stellar Premier League shot-stoppers like Brad Friedel and Tim Howard.

Fast forward a few years, though, and the hype has steadily fizzled out. Now 22, the Illinois native has finally crept into Chelsea's first-team squad, albeit strictly as a third-choice option tucked behind Emiliano Martinez and Mike Penders.

With that much traffic ahead of him in line, his chances of ever putting on the gloves for a big match - or Chelsea seeing a decent return on their investment - look exceptionally thin.

22. Cesare Casadei

Chelsea fans could hardly be blamed for getting excited when new arrival Cesare Casadei was prematurely dubbed the "Italian Michael Ballack" following his £12.5m move from Inter Milan in 2022.

He landed in London as one of Italian football's hottest prospects, but despite showing the occasional flash of quality, he never quite lived up to the billing. Solid if unremarkable loan spells at Reading and Leicester followed, but he never really made a splash back at Stamford Bridge - even after clocking up 11 appearances under Mauricio Pochettino.

In 2024, Chelsea shipped him off to Torino for the exact £12.5m they paid. The Blues got their money back, but they'll be quietly disappointed that Ballack 2.0 never materialised.

21. Angelo Gabriel

Another Santos wonderkid brought into the fold, Angelo Gabriel arrived at Chelsea for a cool £13m in 2023. He never actually played a single competitive minute for the Blues, but he proved to be a surprisingly effective cog in their money-making machinery.

After spending a year on loan at sister club Strasbourg, the Brazilian winger was flipped to Saudi Pro League side Al-Nassr for a slick £19.4m. Chelsea walked away with a sweet £6m profit, and Gabriel got to go rub shoulders with Cristiano Ronaldo. Everybody wins.

20. Axel Disasi

Signed from Monaco for £38.5m as emergency cover for the injured Wesley Fofana in 2023, Axel Disasi never quite looked at home in Chelsea's backline. His heavy frame and distinct lack of pace gave him the mobility of a lumbering tank, and by the time Maresca arrived a year later, he was practically persona non grata.

He quickly slid down to fifth-choice centre-back, collecting most of his minutes in the Conference League with Chelsea's glorified B-team. Loans to Aston Villa, West Ham and Crystal Palace followed, and having some decent spells of form, he's proven remarkably tough to shift permanently.

His Stamford Bridge career is all but dead, and Chelsea will almost certainly have to swallow a hefty loss whenever they finally manage to take him off the wage bill for good.

19. Lesley Ugochukwu

A product of Rennes' famed academy, Lesley Ugochukwu arrived at Chelsea for £23.1m in 2023. Unluckily for him, he immediately found himself stuck in a massive midfield traffic jam behind Moises Caicedo, Romeo Lavia, Enzo Fernandez and Conor Gallagher, ultimately scraping together just 12 Premier League appearances.

A loan spell at Southampton followed the next season before Chelsea quietly flipped him to Burnley for £24m. That bagged the Blues a grand total of £900,000 in profit on paper - meaning he was, quite literally, just about worth the trouble!

18. Benoit Badiashile

Benoit Badiashile initially looked like a rare piece of shrewd business. Arriving from Monaco for £32m in January 2023, the French defender immediately helped steady a rocky backline during the tail end of a deeply turbulent season.

That honeymoon period didn't last long, though. His form quickly nosedived, he struggled for any real consistency under Pochettino, and by the time Maresca took over in 2024, he was promptly exiled to Chelsea's Conference League B-team.

Much like his former Monaco buddy Axel Disasi, he's proven tricky to shift on a permanent deal. Chelsea did at least manage to pocket a £2m loan fee by sending him off to Napoli this summer, but after such a promising start, Badiashile ultimately goes down as another expensive misstep.

17. Carney Chukwuemeka

Carney Chukwuemeka arrived from Aston Villa in 2022 boasting a reputation as one of the brightest young prospects in English football. Chelsea dropped a hefty £15m to secure his signature, and it didn't take long for him to start showing why.

A stunning goal against West Ham on the opening weekend of the 2023/24 season seemed to herald his arrival as the Premier League's next big thing. Cruelly, though, he suffered a severe knee injury later that very same afternoon - a blow that effectively derailed his entire Stamford Bridge career before it ever really took flight.

Following a loan spell at Borussia Dortmund, Chelsea eventually made the move permanent for £20m. That handed the Blues a tidy £5 million profit on a player who never got to do an awful lot in West London, but certainly had all the talent to.

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