Joao Felix has joined Chelsea for a fee of up to £46.3m from Atletico Madrid; Portugal forward spent the second half of the 2022/23 season on loan at Stamford Bridge; Conor Gallagher joined Atletico from Chelsea on Wednesday
Thursday 22 August 2024 08:15, UK
Now into their third season as Chelsea's owners, the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital partnership have long since lost their capacity to surprise with their transfer market manoeuvrings.
But confirming a deal worth up to £46.3m to bring Joao Felix back to Stamford Bridge - less than two years after his underwhelming loan spell at the club - has managed to raise a few eyebrows.
Felix becomes Chelsea's 10th signing of the summer - and their 43rd since the Boehly-Clearlake takeover.
The 24-year-old's arrival came just hours after the £36m departure of Conor Gallagher to Atletico, whose move initially stalled after the collapse of Samu Omorodion's switch from Madrid to Chelsea.
Factoring in the Felix and Gallagher deals, Chelsea will have accumulated an estimated net spend of over £800m under their current owners - almost double the total of any other Premier League side over the same period.
Jamie Carragher has openly questioned Chelsea's decision to re-sign Felix and asked how Chelsea plan to accommodate another attacking player in their already bloated squad.
The deal has to be placed into the context of the Blues' desire to sell Gallagher. The midfielder turned down the offer of a new two-year deal in west London and would have been able to walk away for free next summer.
Selling Gallagher now allowed Chelsea to raise £36m on a player they developed through their academy. This will immediately be added to their accounts as 'pure profit' - a valuable boost in the era of Profitability and Sustainability Rules.
That Atletico needed to sell a player in order to afford Gallagher - and that the funds are coming from Chelsea through their purchase of Felix - speaks to the complexities of the financial rules.
Assuming all of the add-ons in the deal for Felix - who is set to sign a six-year deal - are triggered, Chelsea will be able to spread the £46.3m cost of his signing across the maximum five-year period.
That means Felix will be listed as an annual cost of around £9m on Chelsea's accounts. Contrast that to raising £36m for Gallagher and the deals will result in a £27m profit for the club this year.
But if Felix's signing makes sense for Chelsea's accountants, the logic is harder to pin down for Enzo Maresca as he spends the first months of his reign attempting to form a cohesive team from the huge number of players at his disposal.
Felix will be competing for a place as an attacking midfielder or forward with Cole Palmer, Enzo Fernandez, Christopher Nkunku, Mykhaylo Mudryk, Noni Madueke, Nicolas Jackson and Pedro Neto, while Omari Kellyman and Marc Guiu are on the fringes.
Raheem Sterling, Romelu Lukaku, Armando Broja, Carney Chukwuemeka, Cesare Casadei, Angelo Gabriel, Deivid Washington and David Fofana also all remain on Chelsea's books.
Chelsea will argue many of those players will leave before the transfer window closes on August 30. But finding new clubs for players handed lengthy contracts is easier said than done.
Felix has spent the majority of his career playing behind a striker or on the left wing - including during his 20-game stint at Chelsea in the 2022/23 season - but Nkunku and Neto in particular may be uncomfortable with that idea.
"They're buying Felix - where's he going to play?" asked Carragher. "They signed Neto a week ago - where's he going to play when you've got Palmer already?
"Where would you play Fernandez, a £100m player? Where would you play Nkunku?"
The Portugal international's time in west London was largely forgettable, contributing four goals and zero assists before being sent on loan to Barcelona for the following campaign.
But when looking at Felix's stats per 90 minutes with Chelsea, his performances appear in a more positive light, ranking first among his team-mates for goals scored and second for successful take-ons.
Felix also had the misfortune of joining Chelsea at their lowest ebb, winning just four of the matches in which he played as Graham Potter and Frank Lampard toiled in the dugout.
Curiously, a sense of Felix having underperformed despite producing a reasonable output is a pattern repeated at Atletico. Despite being surplus to requirements under Diego Simeone for the past few seasons, only two players - Alvaro Morata and Luis Suarez - have scored more goals per 90 minutes for the club since he signed in 2019.
Felix was also a regular under Xavi at Barcelona last season, producing 10 goals and six assists in 44 games, but a permanent move failed to materialise.
Perhaps Felix is a victim of something over which he had no control - the exorbitant fee Atletico paid Benfica for his services in 2019.
The LaLiga side paid more than £100m to sign the then-19-year-old after his breakout season in Portugal. Most players would struggle to live up to that price tag.
Another criticism of Felix is that he is a 'luxury player' - fun to watch and with undoubted quality, but not a proven matchwinner.
There is evidence to back up that suggestion. Felix ranked poorly for ball recoveries per 90 at Chelsea and Barcelona over the past two seasons, while he failed to contribute an assist during his previous stint in the Premier League.
Felix also has a dreadful record in the biggest matches, failing to score in nine finals or semi-finals at club level, and recording just one goal in seven matches at major tournaments for Portugal.
Like with so many of Chelsea's recent signings, Felix is a gamble. If Maresca can succeed where Simeone, Potter and Lampard all - to some extent - failed and consistently extract the forward's undoubted potential, then £46.3m could look like money well spent.
But Chelsea have also paid considerable fees on numerous other attacking players - and they can't all play. It's just another challenge for Maresca to overcome in what is just his second full season as a head coach.
