Stamford Bridge. Source: Team Talk

Chelsea have been in the spotlight since FIFA announced their plan to regulate club's on loan players. Chelsea have been stockpiling talents and outsmarting financial fair play regulation by hoarding cheap and young players and loan them to other clubs. By 2018 Chelsea had 40 on loan players, and FIFA want to regulate it to maximum 6-8 on loan players per club. That would be a big blow to the London-based club's business.

But, are Chelsea the only EPL club in threat with the upcoming FIFA rule? I did a simple fact-check to answer the question and look deeper into Chelsea's loan market activities.

I gathered data on EPL club's on loan players this season, specifically after January window transfer and made a comparison of top 10 clubs based on their position on the table. They are Liverpool, Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Watford, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Everton, and West Ham United. I think data of the top 10 clubs are enough to draw a conclusion about this matter.

All data is from transfermarkt.

Let's start with the number of out on loan players for each club.

  • Liverpool: 5 out on loan players.
  • City: 14 out on loan players.
  • Spurs: 3 out on loan players.
  • United: 5 out on loan players.
  • Chelsea: 22 out on loan players.
  •  Arsenal: 6 out on loan players.
  • Watford: 12 out on loan players.
  • Wolves: 14 out on loan players.
  • Everton: 15 out on loan players.
  • West Ham: 8 out on loan players.

There are five clubs that have more than 6-8 out on loan players; Chelsea (22), Everton (15), City (14), Wolves (14), and Watford (12). This means the upcoming FIFA rules will hurt their loan market activities as well, not just Chelsea's.

Things will become more interesting if we go deeper and look at the market value of players.

Data source: Transfermarkt. Prepared by @satriotomo.

The chart above shows us the market value of players of the top 10 EPL clubs, divided into two groups: main squad and on loan players. As we can see above, Liverpool's main squad worth 926.5 million euros in market value and their on loan players worth 39.25 million euros in market value. You can see the rest on the chart.

Before we go further we need to make a ratio first. To see things better and more proportional I believe we need a ratio. Below is the full list of on loan players/main squad ratio for each club.

  • Liverpool: 39.25/926.50 = 4.24%.
  • City: 21.15/1,130.00 = 1.87%.
  • Spurs: 11.50/801.50 = 1.43%.
  • United: 14.00/759.00 = 1.84%.
  • Chelsea: 266.25/861.75 = 30.90%.
  • Arsenal: 24.50/615.50 = 3.98%.
  • Watford: 28.80/174.00 = 16.55%.
  • Wolves: 15.60/224.75 = 6.94%.
  • Everton: 89.25/425.00 = 20.95%.
  • West Ham: 27.50/297.00 = 9.26%.

From the chart and the list above we can see that Chelsea is the most outstanding club in this matter, followed by Everton. Chelsea's on loan players market value reaches 266.25 million euros, and their ratio of on loan players/main squad reaches 30.90%. The number is ridiculously high. Chelsea spent 266.25 million euros for the players they don't need and loan them out to other clubs, while Watford's main squad worths only 174 million euros.

You can draw many conclusions from these data, but at least we can say that of the top 10 EPL clubs, Chelsea and Everton are the most aggressive in the loan market. Chelsea have 22 on loan players worth 266.25 million euros (30.90% of their main squad) and Everton have 15 worth 89.25 million euros (20.95% of their main squad). While City loan out 14 players but they are all cheap ones that worth only 21.15 million euros (1.87% of their main squad).

I hope you find this post interesting and useful.