Boehly must finally sell Chelsea flop who’s drained them of £114m

Chelsea may have a lot of work to do in the upcoming summer transfer window to build a squad that is ready to compete for the biggest trophies on offer.

The Blues only have the Conference League left to play for in the current campaign, after being knocked out of the League Cup and the EFL Cup, but they are on course to seal a place in the Champions League with a top four or top five finish.

Enzo Maresca may look to streamline the squad and move on from some of the players who either have not contributed enough on the pitch, or who have been out on loan and not done enough to earn a place in the side for the 2025/26 campaign.

Moving some of the highest earners and biggest underperformers on from Stamford Bridge in the summer could create space at the club for new signings to come in and improve the Italian coach’s team.

Chelsea’s highest wage earners

The top three earners in the squad, Reece James, Wesley Fofana, and Christopher Nkunku have only started 30 of a possible 87 matches in the Premier League this season.

James is reportedly the highest earner at the club on £250k-per-week, per Capology, followed by Fofana on £215k-per-week, and Nkunku on £195k-per-week, and there may have to be decisions to be made on how much value for money the club are getting out of them.

What you cannot see in that list of the top ten earners at the club, however, is that Chelsea are still reportedly paying £75k-per-week to Spanish goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga, who is on loan at Bournemouth.

Why Chelsea must finally sell Kepa Arrizabalaga

Maresca must, now, finally cash in on the Spain international in the summer transfer window because the club have sent millions down the drain on the shot-stopper to date.

Chelsea reportedly smashed their club-record transfer fee to make him the most expensive goalkeeper in history with a £71m deal with Athletic Bilbao in the summer of 2018, and he penned a contract worth roughly £150k-per-week.

Kepa reportedly earned £39.1m in wages across his first four seasons at Cobham, conceding 175 goals in 163 appearances for the club in that time, which takes the total spent on him to £110.1m prior to this season.

The Spaniard, whose wages were covered by Real Madrid on loan last term, will have earned £3.9m in wages from the Blues – thanks to a 50% split with Bournemouth – this season and that takes the overall spend on him to £114m.

Kepa’s performances on the pitch for Chelsea when he was a regular in the first team did not provide good value for that amount of money.

Not only was there that ridiculous incident where he refused to be substituted but he conceded 8.9 more goals than the average goalkeeper would have been expected to based on the post-shot xG of the efforts against him in the Premier League in 109 matches.

Post-shot expected goals (PSxG) is a metric used to determine how likely a goalkeeper is to save a shot.

Gary Neville heaped criticism on the £71m goalkeeper back in 2020 over his constant concession of long-range goals – 19 at the time – as he described his shot-stopping performances as a “sorry story” for a player of that value.

This shows that the 30-year-old flop, who did not win a Premier League title with the Blues, underperformed on the biggest job a goalkeeper has – saving shots.

Kepa’s contract at Stamford Bridges expires in the summer of 2026 and Maresca must push the board to cash in on him this year, to avoid losing him for nothing and to, hopefully, recoup a small amount of the £114m that has been wasted on the dud so far.