There are a number of players considered for this list who proved worse players for Chelsea than Shaun Wright-Phillips. Slavisa Jokanovic, Jiri Jarosik, Steve Sidwell and Claudio Pizarro... all hopeless players to a one, yet few lasting more than a couple of years and ultimately not costing the club too much either in wages or transfer fees. Jiri Jarosik, in fact, may go down as the worst player Jose Mourinho signed for any club, but was only on Chelsea's books for three years (only playing for the club during one of them) after signing for a relatively paltry £3 million. Shaun Wright-Phillips, on the other hand, was signed for an immense £21 million back in 2005 and stayed for three years of his five year contract despite never looking even remotely close to displacing Arjen Robben, Damien Duff or Joe Cole for a starting position. The diminutive winger, son of Arsenal legend Ian Wright, was coming off an outstanding season for City and word on the street was that Abramovich poached him first and foremost to stop him from moving to any Premier League rivals. He only managed 15 starts during his first season and subsequently missed out on the England squad for the 2006 World Cup. He managed to hit a run of form of sorts at the tail end of the following season, but only produced in fits and starts, ending up with a dismal four league goals to his name during his stay. Wright-Phillips subsequently returned to Manchester City in a bid to recapture the form which had made him a standout prospect prior to his Chelsea move, yet while his performances did see an improvement, it wasn't long before new owner Khaldoon Al-Mubarak replaced him with significantly higher grade talent. Wright-Phillips gets the nod as arguably the first truly disastrous huge money signing by Roman Abramovich.
28-year old English writer with a borderline obsessive passion for films, videogames, Chelsea FC, incomprehensible words and indefensible puns. Follow me on Twitter if you like infrequent outbursts of absolute drivel.
