The transfer lesson Arsenal must learn from Chelsea
14 May 2026 16:58 BST |
5 min read
Since 2022, Arsenal and Chelsea have been heading in vastly different directions. The former have turned into regular Premier League title challengers, and the latter have fallen towards mid-table.
Arsenal are three wins away from securing a historic Champions League and Premier League double, while Chelsea could still finish in the bottom-half of the English top flight table for the second time in four years.
So, it’s fair to suggest that, on first glance, there’s nothing that Arsenal should be looking to copy from Chelsea. The Blues have introduced a radical transfer strategy that simply hasn’t worked out, while Arsenal have been extremely shrewd in the market, despite still spending huge sums of money.
Very few signings have failed to work out at the Emirates Stadium in recent years and that is testament to the work of the recruitment team and head coach Mikel Arteta. However, there is still one key area that Arsenal haven’t quite cracked: sales.
Although any elite club will have no intention of offloading their best players to rivals, Arsenal’s inability to utilise the market in order to raise funds has been inexplicable for years.
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain somehow remains their all-time record sale thanks to his €38 million move to Liverpool in 2017 and it’s something the club must look to fix.
Last summer, despite spending just shy of €300m on new signings, Arsenal only earned a measly €8.9m through the permanent sales of Nuno Tavares, Marquinhos and Albert Sambi Lokonga. In 2024, they did offload Emile Smith Rowe and Eddie Nketiah for over €29m each, but the brutal reality is that only one player (Oxlade-Chamberlain) has been sold for €35m or more since Nicolas Anelka left for Real Madrid in 1999.
By comparison, Liverpool have sold eight players for a fee of at least €35m in that time frame, Manchester City have done it nine times, Manchester United on five occasions and Chelsea have done so with a whopping 19 players.
It’s something Arsenal must address. The added revenue they will receive thanks to their exploits in the Premier League and the Champions League will certainly help this summer, but their transfer budget isn’t limitless, thanks to financial regulations, and sales will be required.
However, Arsenal can’t just sanction sales, they need to maximise the money earned through departures – which is something they haven’t done with Jakub Kiwior.
The transfer lesson Arsenal must learn from Chelsea
Following confirmation of an agreement to sign Piero Hincapie on loan with an option to buy last summer, Arsenal finalised a deal for Kiwior to join FC Porto.
It was an initial loan deal with an obligation to buy if Porto won the league – which they managed to achieve. As a result, Kiwior has now officially joined Francesco Farioli’s side on a permanent deal for a fixed fee of €17m, plus a possible €5m in add-ons.
However, the fee is below his current Estimated Transfer Value (ETV) of €25.4m and far lower than his peak ETV of €35.4m from last summer.
With Arsenal wanting to sign the likes of Julian Alvarez, Anthony Gordon and Valentino Livramento this summer, they need as much money as possible, but selling Kiwior for below his value isn’t a good start.
Chelsea, by comparison, have utilised the transfer market extremely well to sell their unwanted stars in recent windows. It’s one of very few things that BlueCo have perfected during their four-year stay at Stamford Bridge thus far.
Kai Havertz (€75m to Arsenal), Mason Mount (€67.7m to Man Utd), Noni Madueke (€56m to Arsenal), Ian Maatsen (€44.5m to Aston Villa), Conor Gallagher (€42m to Atletico Madrid) and Christopher Nkunku (€37m to AC Milan) have all been sold during the reign of Behdad Eghbali and Todd Boehly, and it’s significantly helped to fund their business.
Of course, it helps when you have a lot of players on your books like Chelsea do, but if Arsenal can learn a thing or two from the Blues when it comes to sales, it will undoubtedly help them to continue building a formidable squad.
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