Why Chelsea's unprecedented selling power is Enzo Maresca's ticket to success

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Evening Standard

·2 September 2025

Why Chelsea's unprecedented selling power is Enzo Maresca's ticket to success

The Blues’ high-turnover transfer strategy is starting to prove its worth

Your matchday briefing on Chelsea, featuring team news and expert analysis from Dom Smith

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It has been a record-breaking summer of spending in the Premier League, capped off by the £125million Liverpool splashed to sign Alexander Isak from Newcastle on Deadline Day.

Chelsea spent more than most — as they so often do — and yet it was their selling, not their buying, that most caught attention over the course of a relentless summer of transfer business.

If all future obligations are met, the Blues will have brought in an astonishing £313million in player sales this summer, shifting players that were not wanted in a heavily bloated squad and making space for — as well as helping to afford — statement signings such as Joao Pedro, for up to £60million, and Jamie Gittens, for up to £52m.

Chelsea could receive as much as £43.7m for João Félix and up to £26m for defender Renato Veiga, purchased just a year ago for only £12m. Lesley Ugochukwu joined Burnley for £25m. Armando Broja, a man for whom goals are exceedingly rare, as is game time, joined the Clarets too, and Chelsea pocketed £20m.

Their business was helped, of course, by the ability to transfer some unwanted players, such as Ben Chilwell, to sister club Strasbourg. Mostly, though, it has been an extremely impressive summer of balancing the books and improving the squad at head coach Enzo Maresca’s disposal.

That headline amount of cash brought in by the club in player sales represents the highest of any club in the world.

It would not be hyperbolic to suggest Chelsea’s controversial conveyor-belt transfer strategy has produced the greatest transfer window of player sales in the history of the sport. The transfer fees recouped for departing often felt extraordinary.

And while Raheem Sterling is not open to an exit abroad, Axel Disasi and David Datro Fofana, training with the ‘bomb squad’, may well see Saudi Arabia or Turkey as viable destinations given that those transfer windows still remain open. The possibility of growing that £313m sum even further remains.

What Chelsea are left with is a much leaner, much better squad than that which won the Conference League and qualified for the Champions League at the end of May.

However the season ahead pans out on the pitch, the recruitment team have been decisive and productive — and for Chelsea it has been highly lucrative.