Possibly the first bid Roman Abramovich ever made for a player was for AC Milan's legendary centre back, Alessandro Nesta. Initially, the Italian club only revealed that an offer of £34.4 million had been received by 'an English club' back in August 2003, though it didn't take long for reporters to work out that the newly Russian-backed Londoners were the ones behind the bid. While Milan later said the player was 'untransferable' given his status and importance to the club, it was a clear statement of intent from Abramovich as he sought to quickly establish his new club on the world stage. Bids for such esteemed footballing luminaries of the time as Edgar Davids, Marcelo Salas, Christian Vieri, Patrick Kluivert, Andriy Shevchenko, Patrick Vieira and a young Wayne Rooney were also believed to have been made - and those are just the players not included in this team. Nesta would have been a gargantuan signing for the Blues, not only because he was widely considered one of the finest centre backs in the world at the time - what a partnership he'd have made with John Terry - but also because he was so closely linked with Milan, at that time still considered one of the top teams in the world. Snatching one of the biggest stars from such a big club would have immediately proven that Chelsea were a club to be taken seriously, but alas, on that occasion it was not to be.
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.
