5 times clubs massively overpaid for players

#5 Danny Drinkwater - £35m to Chelsea, 2017

It's a mystery why Chelsea spent so much on Danny Drinkwater to use him purely as a bit-part player

As with Batshuayi, the transfer of Danny Drinkwater to Chelsea from Leicester in September 2017 marked another example of the Blues being overly willing to pay a monstrous fee for a player who would largely be used as a backup option. Drinkwater had won the Premier League title in 2015/16 with Leicester City as largely an ever-present, but his performances were buoyed by the presence of N’Golo Kante, who moved to Chelsea himself in the summer of 2016.

Without Kante beside him, Drinkwater didn’t look nearly as effective in 2016/17 and despite again appearing in the majority of Leicester’s Premier League games, his form clearly dropped – for instance, his WhoScored.com average rating slipped from 7.30 in 2015/16 to 6.78 in 2016/17. Leicester ended that season in a disappointing 12th place, and it was no surprise when Drinkwater lost his place in the England squad too.

That only made it more surprising when Chelsea decided to sign the midfielder at the end of the summer 2017 transfer window – for a huge fee of £35m, too. With the likes of Kante, Cesc Fabregas and Tiemoue Bakayoko already at Stamford Bridge, playing time was always going to be scant for Drinkwater and so it was hardly shocking when he made just 5 starts in the Premier League for his new club.

Current rumours have Chelsea looking to offload Drinkwater already – bringing into question exactly what the point of signing him was in the first place, especially at such a hefty transfer fee. Recent reports suggest that Chelsea are looking to recoup at least £30m for him, but that doesn’t seem likely at all given his lack of action last season and so the likelihood is that they’ll take quite a loss on a player they overpaid massively for, to begin with.