Last summer, Chelsea decided the time had come to loosen the purse strings on their transfer kitty and go to town in the summer transfer window.
The Blues, who will be looking to maintain their unbeaten start to life under head coach Thomas Tuchel when they travel to Anfield to face Liverpool on Thursday evening, spent more than £220million on seven new recruits in an attempt to try and turn themselves back into genuine Premier League title contenders.
The club landed the likes of Ben Chilwell, Kai Havertz, Hakim Ziyech and Timo Werner in big-money deals, proving to the rest of Europe that they meant business.
Despite spending such a massive amount of money less than 12 months ago, there is talk of the Blues doing it all over again this summer, with a whole host of big-name stars once again being linked with a move to the club, including Bayern Munich centre-back Niklas Sule, Jonas Hofmann of Bourssia Monchengladbach and Borussia Dortmund sensation Erling Haaland.
Whilst that is all said and good, Chelsea cannot continuously keep adding to the squad and not cut their cloth at the same time. The Blues have a whole host of players, either well down the pecking order or out on loan, that will not figure in Tuchel's plans next season and will need moving on.
But Chelsea will have to closely asses a number of factors when deciding on who they plan to offload permanently this summer, taking age, current value and future value into consideration.
That is because data released by BettingOdds.com has revealed that Chelsea, who were beaten 2-0 by Liverpool in the reverse fixture at Stamford Bridge back in September, have missed out on an additional £70.61million in player sales since the beginning of the 2016/17 season.
That has happened because the Blues have sold £557.87million worth of talent for just £487.26million, leaving them £70.61million in the red.
In football, hindsight, of course, can be a wonderful thing. Nobody knows what could happen or how fast or slow it may occur. In the last five seasons, Chelsea have sold an array of big names, including Thibaut Courtois, Nemanja Matic, Oscar, Mohamed Salah and Eden Hazard, to name just a few.
Of those who have left Chelsea in the last five years, Salah has gone to achieve the greatest things, helping Liverpool win the Premier League title, the UEFA Champions League and FIFA Club World Cup, as well as score tonnes of goals season after season.
Chelsea sold Salah to Roma for just £13.5million in August 2016 and he is now worth, according to the data provided, £108million, making up a difference of a staggering £94.5million.
Unfortunately for Chelsea, only a handful of clubs have lost more than them in potential player sales in the last five years. The study has shown that only Sheffield United, Manchester City, Aston Villa and London rivals Arsenal have lost more money in terms of players being valued far higher now than what they were when they left those aforementioned clubs.
But whilst the overall picture is not great for Chelsea, they have come up smelling of roses in one sense. Since Hazard swapped west London for the Spanish capital in the summer of 2019, his career has gone backwards, with injuries having hindered his progress in Spain.
Now, according to the latest data, Hazard is only valued at £45million in comparison to the £103.5million Chelsea received for him less than two years ago.
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In conclusion, Chelsea have lost more money over the last five years in potential player sales than just four other Premier League rivals, losing a total of £70.61million in additional funds.
That, therefore, means that had those players performed better and earned a higher value at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea would have recouped more money when offloading them, meaning Tuchel may have had even more money to spend this summer, as he looks to put his own stamp of authority on the squad he inherited from Frank Lampard.
