Many Chelsea fans (and media) weren't very happy when Michael Emenalo was promoted from assistant coach to sporting director. Many, myself included, believed than Emenalo got the job due more to his friendship with Abramovich and overlooked the fact that he had previously been the chief scout for Chelsea.

So now after 6 transfer windows under Emenalo's direction I wanted to look back at the signings Emenalo has made since being hired to sporting director. To do so I broke down all non-youth signed players (so players that entered the first team or have been loaned out). I'm not grading the signings (for many it's too early) but I wanted to look at the signings from a financial perspective comparing the transfer fee to that of the current market value (according to transfermarkt) and including any income accumulated from the player being loaned out. I then compared the value a player brought to the team (market value + loan fees) and compared that to the price of purchasing the player. A negative net value doesn't mean the player was a bad signing, simply that Emenalo paid for a player's potential and the player hasn't quite reached it yet. Now not all these financial numbers will be 100% accurate, however, they should be close. Switching from euros to pounds at today's interest rate changes the cost of a signing compared to what it was one or two years ago. Final note, if a player has been sold then the market value will just be the sale price.

Summer of 2011-2012

Courtois (Genk) - price: £7.9m, market value: £20.8m, loan fees: £5m, net value: £17.85m

Romeu (Barcelona) - price: £4.4m, market value: £5m, loan fees: £0.8m, net value: £1.45m

Lukaku (Anderlecht) - price: £18m, market value: £20.8m, loan fees: £3m, net value: £5.8m

Mata (Valencia) - price: £23.5m, market value: £37.1m, net value: £13.6m

Davila (Guadalajara) - price: £1.8m, market value: £1.2m, net value: -£0.55m

Meireles (Liverpool) - price: £12m, market value: £8m, net value: -£4m

Winter of 2011-2012

Omeruo (Standard Liege) - price: £2m, market value: £1m, net value: -£1m

Cahill (Bolton) - price: £7m, market value: £15m, net value: £8m

Piazon (Sao Paulo) - price: £6.2m, market value: £4.2m, net value: -£2m

Bamford (Nottingham Forest) - price: £1m, market value: £1m, net value: £0

De Bruyne (Genk) - price: £6.7m, market value: £16.5, loan fees: £0.4m, net value: £10.4m

Summer of 2012-2013

Marin (Werder Bremen) - price: £6.7m, market value: £4.2m, net value: -£2.5m

E. Hazard (Lille) - price: £32m, market value: £37.5m, net value: £5.5m

T. Hazard (Lens) - price: £0.8m, market value: £5m, net value: £4.2m

Oscar (Internacional) - price: £19.5m, market value: £28.2m, net value: £8.7m

Azpilicueta (Marseille) - price: £7m, market value: £15m, net value: £8m

Moses (Wigan) - price: £7m, market value: £9.1m, loan fees: £1m, net value: £3.1m

Winter of 2012-2013

Wallace (Fluminense) - price: £4.2m, market value: £5m, loan fees: £1.2m, net value: £2m

Ba (Newcastle) - price: £7m, market value: £9m, net value: £2m

Summer of 2013-2014

Schurrle (Bayer Leverkusen) - price: £18.7m, market value: £16.6m, net value: -£2.1m

van Ginkel (Vitesse) - price: £8m, market value: £7.5m, net value: -£0.5m

Cuevas (O'Higgins) - price: £1.7m, market value: £1.4m, net value: -£0.3m

Perica (Zadar) - price: £2m, market value: £0.6m, net value: -£1.4m

Willian (Anzhi) - price: £30m, market value: £25m, net value: -£5m

Atsu (Porto) - price: £3.5m, market value: £5m, net value: £1.5m

(Eto'o and Schwarzer both came in on free transfers and have been excluded from this review)

Winter of 2013-2014

Matic (Benfica) - price: £21m, market value: £20.8m, net value: -£0.2m

Salah (Basel) - price: £11m, market value: £10.8m, net value: -£0.2m

Zouma (Saint-Etienne) - price: £12.5m, market value: £8.3m, net value: -£4.2m

Conclusion

In six transfer periods Chelsea has spent £283m or just over £47m a transfer period. With that amount of money Emenalo should be doing well but I think he's doing exceptionally well. The current players Emenalo has signed have a combined £340m value, meaning Emenalo has received a 19.98% return on his investments. Including the £11m Chelsea has recouped in loan fees alone (mostly from Courtois and Lukaku) Chelsea has netted £67.95m in value since his arrival. That means every transfer period Chelsea is gaining about £11m in value when we add players. That's pretty amazing.

One of the reasons why I think Emenalo has been succeeding is that Emenalo seems to do a good job of not overpaying for talent. Matic and Salah have not been wearing blue very long but both have already reached their market value. Now some of this makes sense, seeing as that's what the market valued them at when Chelsea acquired them, but the fact that with just some development CFC could sell these players at a profit is amazing. Normally you see teams acquire a player at a 20-50% markup over their market value because you're buying potential. Zouma is a good case of this. If we look at the last year's worth of signings alone, Salah, Matic, Willian, Cuevas, van Ginkel and Schurrle are all near their acquired price with limited development since signing. Atsu has already surpassed his fee and by the end of the season could be worth 200% of his transfer fee within a single season.

Emenalo has also hit on all his big signings. Lukaku, Mata, Hazard, Oscar, Willian, and Matic are all big signings (the last 5 were the signings over £20m and Lukaku was a huge fee for an unproved 18 year old). Going 6 for 6 is more than just good luck but after a handful of big signings missing, we were due for a good streak.

If we look at just the players that have negative value they seem to fall into of three groups. Group 1 is full ofyoung players that haven't yet had the time to reach their transfer fee yet (or transfermarkt hasn't adjusted their market value yet). These players include Schurrle, van Ginkel, Cuevas, Perica, Willian, Matic, Salah, Zouma, Omeruo, and Piazon. It seems clear that Matic, Omeuo and Piazon are worth more than their transfer fees already. Schurrle has been blocked out of the starting 11 by Hazard which says more about Hazard than Schurrle. van Ginkel has missed almost the entire season with an injury, limiting his market value. Of this group, I don't think anyone would argue against a single signing.

Group 2 are emergency buys that haven't worked out. Marin was insurance against CFC not making the Champions League and missing out on much needed attacking reinforcements (Aren't you now even more happy about Drogba being Drogba in Munich? Without his game tying goal we'd have missed out on Hazard and would have had to put more trust in Marin's health). Meireles is the other person in this group and was just as much insurance as Marin. Essien was injured again (maybe missing the season) and Levy had just rebuked our way too expensive offer for Modric and Chelsea NEEDED a MF. Meireles was available and EPL experienced. Selling him a year later at a loss shows he was a 1 year bridge and that was it. However, he did help us win the Champions League and that's easily worth a £4m transfer loss anyday.

The final group consists of one player. Davila. Again alone. He seemed an odd buy at the time, between his age and the league he was coming from. However, at under £2m how bad of a gamble could it really be? If he was Chicharito 2.0 he'd have been a much needed ST option. He wasn't and isn't and seems likely to be sold back to Mexico or to the US after this season at a loss. If you have to miss, miss on a cheap player.

Also, Emenalo seems to be doing a good job getting loan fees for our youngsters. It might seem like a small thing for a big club but loan fees are an easy and effective way to mitigate some of the risk and cost of buying a new player. It also literally pays back some of the transfer fee costs. Courtois has paid for close to 62.5% of his transfer fee in loans alone. Wallace, while perhaps not having the best season at Inter Milan, has recouped Chelsea £1.2m of his £4.2m transfer fee. That's not bad work in today's FFP world

Source: http://weaintgotnohistory.sbnation.com/2014/2/11/5399312/emenalos-signings-2011-2013

So it's more sunshine and rainbows over there at Chelsea, huh.. Amazing what a never ending stream of cash can do.. 8]
Inter finally got rid of Branca the useless technical director. About time..

Any video ? So we can know how good he is ?

^Nope, sorry. Emenalo is like Abramovich, he works with out much media attention or video interviews.

Nevermind, nice post. I must admit that Chelsea scouting is actually the best...

I'd bring that up for discussion any given day, tiki. ;-)

@V: Good read. I particularly side with the author's statement that Emenalo has on relatively few occasions been overpaying for talent. The man seems to know what he's doing.

I am actually working on a project exploring the finance of football at school. I interviewed a man who was a financial director of one of the MLS clubs. I asked him: What is the most important attribute do good club owners have? He answered: Commitment. This really goes to show that Roman is a great club owner. He has passion and is willing to commit and invest money in every step of the way. Roman invested money in the club in 2003 that he knew he wouldn't see back until like 10 years later. He is an excellent owner. BTW didn't know that Hazard's brother played for Chelsea I though that he was still playing in France.

quite a difference compared to the guy who brought Torres...

^ :D Good joke.
@Golden I rate Porto and Benfica high in Scouting too, it would be interesting to see how many players were Scouted by them and how much they were sold.

@Tuanis: That was just one of Roman's panic signings... Oh man I wish Roman would stop with these panic signings... Shevchenko, Torres, AVB...

But at least he puts his trust into Emenalo and Mourinho more now! Now we wont have these panic buys anymore :D

@messi6511: Nope, he's playing in the Belgian League on loan right now. He's also really talented (won Belgian Player of the Year 2013 and is wanted by Anderlecht, the best Belgian team who also play in the CL).

^ He won the golden boot this year in Belgium, and he's currently playing for SV Zulte Waregem, as V said Anderlecht wanted to buy him this winter, and Thorgan wanted to go, but Zulte rejected their offer, he should move to Anderlecht this summer though.

@V Great article mate, thks, very interesting :)