Chelsea have experienced plenty of ups and downs over the past few years, which is expected after winning the Champions League in 2021.
The Blues have had the pleasure of witnessing some of the world's best players come through the doors at Stamford Bridge.
In recent times, however, the club have orchestrated some of their worst exchanges of the Premier League era, shelling out extortionate amounts of money on supposedly world-class talent.
While the likes of Romelu Lukaku and Kepa Arrizabalaga steal the headlines in that regard, the arrival of Tiemoue Bakayoko is firmly up there on the list of bad buys.
When did Chelsea sign Tiemoue Bakayoko?
Following the close of the 2016/17 Premier League season, Antonio Conte had just experienced the jubilation of winning England's top title and was provided with a war chest of funds to continue delivering success.
The Italian decided to splash the cash across the pitch, coming across some top talent but also failing to hit the sweet spot in equal measure.
The acquisitions of Olivier Giroud from Arsenal and Antonio Rudiger from Real Madrid represented the former of the two, having gone on to have prosperous careers in west London.
On the other hand, Conte's spending took a turn for the worse with the record £58m signing of Alvaro Morata, Italian right-back Davide Zappacosta, central midfielder Ross Barkley and defensive midfielder Bakayoko.
Bakayoko, who was snapped up from Monaco for £40m, was one of the talents who arrived with high hopes after becoming a crucial cog in Monaco's Ligue 1 title-winning campaign, alongside Fabinho, Bernardo Silva and Kylian Mbappe.
How much did Tiemoue Bakayoko cost Chelsea?
Chelsea have become accustomed to acquiring talents that are a drain on the club's resources and Bakayoko was no different.
Initially, it looked as though the Frenchman was going to form a strong partnership with the exceptional N'Golo Kante in the engine room, although it quickly became apparent that Bakayoko wasn't up to speed with the pace of the Premier League.
Instead of focusing on his responsibility on the pitch, he came out and made a bold claim about his French teammate in an attempt to deflect the attention away from his own poor performance.
In a bitter response about being left out of the French squad, he said: ‘I feel [Adrien] Rabiot, Kante, [Blaise] Matuidi, [Corentin] Tolisso are not better than me. I respect the coach’s decision and I also respect the players who were called up – they are talented, some are friends of mine."
Despite making an arrogant claim about Kante, in particular, Bakayoko failed to use that arrogance as fuel on the pitch, featuring 43 times in his debut season but only managing to muster up six goal contributions.
Remarkably, Bakayoko was on the books of Chelsea for six years till his departure this summer to Lorient and earned £110k-per-week, as per Spotrac.
As a result of the conditions of his multiple loan moves, it meant the Blues were fortunately very rarely ever paying him the full package throughout that half a dozen years, but when you consider the sole full year he was at the club, it was a transfer that cost around £46m, without bonuses taken into consideration. Such a deal means he abysmally cost £15m per goal and £8m for every yellow card.
The 6 foot 2 dud failed to ever made the grade in London and during his time at AC Milan in 2018, Bakayoko earned mixed reviews for his performances.
Whilst sections of the Italian media brandished him as a "disaster", his manager at the time, Grenaro Gattuso, remarkably likened him to former Chelsea star Marcel Desailly for the role he played in their comeback victory over Parma.
Gattuso said: "With my assistant we said he reminds us of [Marcel] Desailly, even if maybe Bakayoko is even more technical."
To describe Bakayoko as technically better than the Chelsea legend beggars belief considering how his career at Stamford Bridge unravelled into a nightmare.
