With Chelsea’s vast spending power over past 20 years, one might think they’d be capable of securing all of their targets. That, however, could not be further from the truth.

There have been plenty of times that Chelsea have gone for top players, but those players, for whatever reason, have chosen to stay put or go elsewhere.

Michael Olise is just the latest target that the Blues have pursued publically only to miss out – the 21-year-old winger has rebuffed their interest and signed a new, extended contract at Selhurst Park. It remains to be seen whether Chelsea signed someone else, but sometimes bagging alternative targets haven’t worked out too badly.

With a move for Gerrard off the table, Mourinho had to look elsewhere, and that meant a £24million move for Lyon’s Michael Essien. That one seemed to turn out okay in the end.

READ: Seven star names who didn’t get their big move away: Gerrard, Rooney…

Edin Dzeko

When Chelsea signed Emerson in January 2018, he wasn’t the only Roma player the club wanted to bring in.

Dzeko was unable to agree personal terms, however, and we can certainly take at least one positive from the breakdown of the deal – had it gone through, we’d have missed out on the Bosnian’s starring role in Roma’s sensational comeback against Barcelona in the Champions League quarter-finals.

Chelsea ended up turning to Olivier Giroud, who scored 40 goals for the club and left with Champions League, Europa League and FA Cup winners’ medals. Not too shabby

Andrea Pirlo

The 2009-10 season – when the Blues won the Premier League and FA Cup Double – could have been even more successful if all of the club’s transfer targets had arrived.

Carlo Ancelotti wanted to bring Andrea Pirlo over from Italy, and – as Pirlo would later recall – it could well have happened if AC Milan hadn’t already lost Kaka that summer.

Chelsea only signed one central midfielder that summer, Nemanja Matic joining from Kosice for his first Chelsea stint, and John Obi Mikel was the closest the club had to someone in the Pirlo role that year.

Franck Ribery

Another nearly-man from the 2009-10 season, Ribery was linked with a big-money move to Carlo Ancelotti’s side, and Uli Hoeness claimed a bid of €65million plus Jose Bosingwa was turned down.

Ribery may have found himself wondering what might have been. Bayern endured a difficult start to the season under Louis van Gaal (they were down in seventh in October) and he missed most of the first half of the season through injury.

However, his return coincided with a title charge and a run to the 2010 Champions League final.

The Frenchman would eventually end up playing under Ancelotti, but it would need the Italian to come to him in the form of a year and a bit in Bavaria.

Chelsea, meanwhile, had to make do with Yuri Zhirkov. Still, with Ribery on their books, perhaps there would have been no room for Eden Hazard three years later. 

Ronaldinho

In the summer of 2007, after the humiliation of needing to give Manchester United’s fringe players a guard of honour at Stamford Bridge, Roman Abramovich was intent on reclaiming the title.

One of his main targets was Ronaldinho, with the Brazilian’s previous performances against Chelsea clearly living long in the memory. But Barcelona were not in a selling mood.

The Blues brought in Florent Malouda that summer but decided to dip back into the transfer market in January to secure Nicolas Anelka for £15million from Bolton.

Ultimately, despite going unbeaten from December 23 until the end of the season, they didn’t have enough to deny United back-to-back titles.

Ronaldinho might not have made the difference, though, as injuries limited him to just 26 games in all competitions that season.

When Chelsea looked to launch their title defence in 2010, their squad arguably didn’t need a great deal of strengthening. One man who would have certainly improved them, though, was Silva, then still at Valencia.

“There is no doubt in my mind that Chelsea would be a great club to play for – and a club where I could fulfil my ambition of league titles and the European Cup,” the Spaniard was quoted as saying at the time.

But he would ultimately choose Manchester City as his Premier League destination – a move which he’s probably pretty happy to have made.

The Blues instead signed a different creative midfielder with plenty of flair and quick feet, but it’s fair to say Yossi Benayoun didn’t quite have the same impact.

Alisson

The Athletic’s transfer specialist David Ornstein revealed that back in 2018, Chelsea had a chance to sign Alisson, who had established himself as Brazil’s No.1 and was coming off the back of an exceptional season with Roma.

However, they “hesitated” in the hope Thibaut Courtois would stay, but he still ended up at Real Madrid, and by that point Liverpool had moved ahead of them in the race to sign Alisson with a world-record fee for a goalkeeper.

Chelsea beat it just a few days later when they signed Kepa Arrizabalaga, highly rated at Athletic Bilbao at the time.

Kepa has struggled – to the extent that Chelsea replaced him with Edouard Mendy – while Alisson has put himself in the conversation for best in the world for his hand in Liverpool’s Champions League win and Premier League title.

Still, Kepa has ended up rocking up at the Bernabeu on a season-long loan after Courtois’ serious injury. Funny old world