European football clubs are ready to strengthen their squad as the January transfer window will be open soon. Chelsea was banned to sign players for two transfer windows. However, everything went into favour for the Blues manager Frank Lampard.
FIFA handed a two-window ban in February after football’s world governing body found the club guilty of breaching two of its regulations on players transfers, specifically regarding bringing in U18s and “third-party influence.”
Chelsea have their transfer ban reduced following an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Spot, thus the Blues can sign a player in January transfer window.
The Blues have been cleared to give Lampard access to a £150million transfer budget to strengthen his squad.
However, Lampard should be careful on his shopping list as history proved; there are some players who are coming to clubs but remain in history books as “flops”.
During his time at Chelsea, since 2014, the Blues director Marina Granovkaia has made many signings, but two of them failed to impress.
Here are three Chelsea stars, who failed to make an impact at Stamford Bridge and now considering the worst January signings made by the Blues.
Mohamed Salah
Salah, who is now one of the best football players in the world, didn’t manage to shine when he played for Chelsea. The Egyptian joined the Blues in 2014, from Basel and played under Jose Mourinho. He has made an impressive start to his time at Stamford Bridge; however, his career fell apart.
Mourinho gave him rare playing time and he managed to make only 13 appearances for the Blues and scored only two goals. In 2015, he made a loan move to Fiorentina and proved, he is not the worst one as he scored six goals in his 16 appearances.
Salah’s career got back in the better ways when he joined AS Roma and then sealed a move to Liverpool and impressed under Steven Gerrard.
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Many can think, Mourinho, was unable to bring the best out of Salah, however, Chelsea legend John Terry offered his defence for his former boss.
“In my generation now I see people like Salah and Kevin De Bruyne come through and not being able to match his standards at the time,” the current Aston Villa assistant manager told Dubai Eye radio . “Now they were very talented but very young individuals as well. But Mourinho didn’t have time to put them in the team or take out a Duff or Robben because we was winning every single week and his job is on the line.”
At Liverpool, Salah won Champions League trophy and are now fighting for Premier League glory.
Fernando Torres
After an impressive career at Liverpool, when he scored 65 goals in 102 games, Torres broke the headlines with his move to Chelsea in January of 2011 for a club-record £50 million. Nevertheless, the Blues will have expected more from him than 20 goals in 110 Premier League outings.
However, Torres was a part of Chelsea who made history and won Champions League title in 2011/12 season. With the Blues, the Spaniard won two more trophies- English FA Cup and Europa League.
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Torres spent two and a half year at Stamford Bridge and moved to AC Milan on loan. Following his time in Italy, the Spanish star rejoined his boyhood club Atletico Madrid and ended his career in Sagan Tosu.
The 35-year-old World Cup winner, recently told AS (via
Sport Witness) that his spell at Stamford Bridge was simply a way of '
giving me what I always longed for; the titles.'
Juan Cuadrado
Cuadrado is another star, who failed to impress under “The Special One”. In January 2015, he joined Chelsea from Fiorentina for £26m. The Colombian player struggled to settle in London and failed to make an impact on the pitch.
But it is fair to say, that he didn’t have had a chance to show himself.
Cuadrado made only 12 Premier League appearances for Chelsea but started only four of them. He created 44 chances but scored no goals. His passing accuracy at Chelsea was 86.41 per-cent, however, he provided no assists.
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"When I got there, the squad was already really tight and solid,” Cuadrado said of his time at Chelsea. "
I don't think I was given enough opportunity to show what I can do, but that's football.”
To end his struggles at London, Cuadrado joined Juventus on a three-year-long loan deal and signed a permanent deal only in 2017.
Cuadrado currently plays for Juventus; his contract with the Old Lady expires in 2022.
Source-
SportsKeeda
