Our resident Chelsea supporters here in the Football Transfer Tavern have enjoyed this week more than most this season given that for the umpteenth time, the club managed to do a job on London rivals Arsenal in a 0-1 victory at Emirates Stadium on Sunday.
The overriding feeling amongst our band of Blues supporters has been why haven’t the club been playing like that to their capabilities all season long?
Sitting 14 points off fourth-placed Tottenham Hotspur right now, interim boss Guus Hiddink has said all along that it’s still possible to achieve Champions League qualification, albeit an incredibly slim chance.
Still yet to lose as Blues boss in his second temporary spell, everybody at Stamford Bridge knows the club needs to win pretty much all of their games from here on out to stand a chance of finishing in a European qualification slot.
But with that all set to play out for real between now and May, today we’re reflecting back on yesteryear while devising a list of the five worst Chelsea players of all-time.
Now before many of you lose your marbles, you won’t find terrible Chelsea signings Andriy Shevchenko or Fernando Torres in this five-man shortlist because they clearly had something about their game prior to signing with the Blues.
Instead you’ll find five ex-Chelsea players who quite simply slipped through the net into the Blues’ ranks and God knows how?
Take a look!
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Click on the image below to reveal the five worst Chelsea players of all-time – Agreed?
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Asier del Horno
Now Baba Rahman hasn’t been great since signing from FC Augsburg in the summer but his average form looks spectacular compared to Asier del Horno, the former Spanish international who flopped at Stamford Bridge between 2005 and 2006.
Spending just ONE season in West London, del Horno arrived at Chelsea a star on the rise having performed well at Athletic Bilbao who nurtured him as a youngster but the step up in class was way too much for the left back.
Receiving a red card for an ill-timed challenge on none other than Lionel Messi in the Champions League, this was as close to positive as it got for the Spaniard in his time as a Blue!
Winston Bogarde
If you thought Chelsea’s decision to try and reignite Radamel Falcao’s career was mad at the start of this season, it was almost as mad as the decision to pay Winston Bogarde wages of £40,000-a-week (a lot back in 2000) back after the turn of the millennium!
Arriving in West London from Barcelona on a free transfer, Bogarde was quite simply picking up his wages while doing little else at the club.
Playing just nine times for the club over a FOUR year spell, Chelsea tried desperately to get him off the books after realising soon enough that he wasn’t any good and after this misery, the Dutchman retired from football altogether in November 2005.
Jiri Jarosik
Name two decent Czech Republic players to have performed for Chelsea down the years?
You can’t because aside from Petr Cech, there is nobody else!
Tomas Kalas has been a forgettable Czech national more recently but before him, Jiri Jarosik was distinctly Mr average in a spell between 2005 and 2006.
A giant of a midfielder at 6 ft 5 in, Jarosik wasn’t the most skilful and was only really depended upon when other midfielders were out of the team.
Spending just one season at Stamford Bridge between 2005 and 2006, you could tell none of the Chelsea hierarchy were that impressed with Jarosik considering he was swiftly loaned to Birmingham City in the second half of the 2005/06 campaign.
A classic case of Roman Abramovich getting too involved given the fact Jarosik was apparently highly-rated in his spell at CSKA Moscow prior to signing for the Blues!
Khalid Boulahrouz
Now Khalid Boulahrouz was a terrible Chelsea footballer but to make matters worse, he was awarded the number nine shirt to boot!
Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink will be shaking at the thought, right?
His fellow Dutchman arrived at Stamford Bridge for £8.5 million in August 2006 from Hamburg and after doing alright in his first few games, Chelsea fans discovered just how bad his injury troubles were.
Add to the fact he turned as slow as Per Mertesacker did against Diego Costa last Sunday and Boulahrouz was a player who never really had the chance of usurping either John Terry or Ricardo Carvalho who were the model central defenders in a fantastic spell for Jose Mourinho in England.
Steve Sidwell
We mentioned about the number 9 being hastily passed around in the case of Khalid Boulahrouz and after his departure from Stamford Bridge, another unworthy player claimed the shirt in the form of Steve Sidwell in the 2007/08 campaign.
Now don’t get us wrong, Sidwell has been a hardworking professional down the years in England, enjoying good spells at both Reading and Fulham but Chelsea?
Eyebrows were raised when the former Arsenal trainee signed for the Blues on a free transfer in 2007 and from the get go, he looked a player simply not up to an elite club like Chelsea’s standards.
Figuring just 15 times for the Blues in the top flight, one season as all Sidwell spent in West London with the ginger-haired midfielder then going on to join Aston Villa for around £5 million in 2008.
