Three Football Stars Who Terribly Flopped At Chelsea

Chelsea is admittedly one of the biggest football clubs globally. Despite being an English team, it boasts fans spread across the world, from India to Australia.

When Chelsea plays, football enthusiasts across the globe are glued to their screens, with punters checking top prediction sites for possible forecasts of how the fixtures would go.

Indeed, Chelsea has a long and famous history of signing talented players from around the world, but regrettably, not every player has found success in London.

This article exposes the five players who had the unfortunate experience of failing at Chelsea. These five players all failed to live up to their potential during their time at Stamford Bridge.

So, in this article, we shall examine their performance and compare them to their counterpart who played at their position during their time to reveal how exactly they flopped.

Let’s get on with it already!

Fernando Torres

One of the most regrettable acquisitions of the Roman Abramovich era, it was almost unpredictable that Torres would end up a 50-million-pound disaster.

Acquired from Liverpool, where he had established himself as one of the fiercest attackers in the Premier League, Chelsea fans were salivating being fed obese with goals.

Strangely, Torres never seemed to find his goalscoring shoes in Chelsea. Repeatedly, he made the headlines for glaring misses.

Carlo Ancelotti, Chelsea’s coach at the time, was bemused at how a goal machine like Torres only managed to deliver one goal in 18 appearances during his first season at Chelsea.

Aside from being a historic flop, Torres would be remembered for his goal against Barcelona, which dumped the Catalans out of the Champions League in 2012.

Having failed to displace a glowing Didier Drogba, Torres was eventually shipped out to AC Milan on a 2-year loan.

Marco van Ginkel

Marco van Ginkel played for Chelsea from 2013 to 2021. The 1992-born football player would have been counted among the most performing central midfielder in Chelsea’s senior team but for injuries.

Most people would argue that his injury setbacks prevented him from progressing. But despite a few standouts, his general performance terribly flopped.

Marco van Ginkel’s stay in Chelsea was mostly off the pitch as a result of his limited playing time. During his eight years with the Blues, he only made two appearances and scored no goal (which is such a long time for any player to have made a name in the club).

When compared with his Spanish counterpart, Cesc Fabregas, who bagged 15 goals, made 138 appearances between 2014 – 2019, and also had injuries while in Chelsea, Marco van Ginkel’s performance for Chelsea was mostly disappointing.

In the end, Marco van Ginkel was loaned to AC Milan for a year, where he made 17 appearances but scored only one goal.

He also was subsequently loaned to PSV Eindhoven twice for five years, where we saw him in all his glory—having 30 goals to his name in under 67 appearances.

Finally, he was sold to PSV in 2021 after he failed to leave a lasting effect on the Chelsea senior team.

Jeffrey Bruma

The 1991-born center-back player had one of the most uneventful football careers while at Chelsea. Due to a lack of game time and playing time at Chelsea, Jeffrey Bruma’s performance was subpar.

His possibilities were also occasionally reduced by injuries that he occasionally battled.

In the Premier League, he only got a few opportunities to play, and those chances to shine were few and far between.

In his 4-year stay at Chelsea (2009 – 2013), Jeffrey Bruma only made four appearances and had no goal to his name.

On the other hand, David Luiz, the closest counterpart to Jeffrey Bruma at Chelsea, had 6 goals tied to his name in under 81 appearances during his 3-year stay (2011-2014).

Does this call out Jeffrey Bruma as unprofessional? Well, some people seem to think otherwise.

Bruma, according to some, never quite seemed to fit into the team’s system and was handicapped by a lack of confidence under the team’s several coaches.

The club’s coaching staff also failed to provide Bruma with the support and direction he needed to advance and develop his game.

Additionally, he had a hard time adjusting to the playstyle that Carlo Ancelotti, the team’s then-manager, had instituted. As a result, he frequently found himself left out of the matchday squads entirely.

Eventually, Jeffrey Bruma was loaned out to Leicester City and Hamburger SV, where we saw him display some action owning 2 goals under 11 appearances for Leicester City and 4 goals under 43 appearances for Hamburger SV.

As the years went on, he moved from Chelsea into subsequent football clubs like PSV, VfL Wolfsburg, Schalke 04, Mainz 05, and Kasımpaşa, where he had more appearances.

Conclusion

There are many reasons why these three players struggled at Chelsea. Others appeared to be the wrong fit for the club’s style of play, while some of them were simply not good enough for the Premier League.

In the end, this group of outstanding players failed to pave their way in London and will eventually go down as some of Chelsea’s most disappointing foreign signings.