6 Chelsea players who should have become world class players

Injuries failed loan spells and simply inflated expectations - Tribuna.com looks at those who might've had a much better Chelsea career.

 Charly Musonda

The Belgian forward was widely regarded as one of the most talented players of his age group in the world. Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester United and Manchester City were linked with him before he turned 16, but Charly chose Chelsea.

What went wrong? The two main factors are unsuccessful loan spells at Betis and Celtic and, of course, a terrible knee injury. For that reason, he's played just 4 games since the start of the 2018/19 season.

Charly Musonda is now recovering at Chelsea's training base. He has not played football for 16 months - and it will be a minor miracle if he's able to play regularly after that, let alone in the Premier League.

Marco van Ginkel

A similar story to that of Musonda: the Dutch midfielder was dubbed 'the next Frank Lampard' by his former manager before he joined Chelsea. He left a positive impression on his debut in 2013 but only played 4 games for the Blues.

It's all about injuries again: Marco could not find his rhythm until joining PSV on loan in 2017. he was eventually made the club's captain and led the club to the 2017/18 Eredivisie title.

Since that season and until this week, however, Van Ginkel did not play a single game because of a failed surgery on his knee ligament. But now he's back and still on Chelsea's books - at least until the end of this campaign.

Gael Kakuta

The French youngster was so promising that Chelsea decided to lure him away from Lens in 2007 which started a massive legal battle between the two clubs resulting in Chelsea paying a £2.6m fee for the 16-year-old.

He showed a lot of promise, becoming Academy Player of the Year in his first season and made his senior debut aged 18... but only played 15 more games for the Blues after that. After a series of loan spells, he left Stamford Bridge in 2015.

Having travelled around the world, Kakuta returned to Lens this summer (fittingly for a former Chelsea player, on a loan deal) and has already scored 7 goals this season, the best result in his career.

Lewis Baker, Izzy Brown, Dom Solanke

“If, in a few years, Baker, Brown and Solanke are not national team players, I should blame myself,” Jose Mourinho said back in 2014. Well, these three players have only had one England cap combined - but it's hardly Mourinho's fault as he left Chelsea the following year.

Dom Solanke, the only player with a cap, is also the only one to have cut his ties with Chelsea. He's now at Bournemouth and has scored 10 goals as the Cherries try to get back to the Premier League.

The other two players 'chosen' by Mourinho are still on Chelsea's books. Lewis Baker has left for his eighth loan spell and is now playing for Trabzonspor in Turkey. Izzy Brown is in his seventh loan stint, with five of them being at a Championship club, including the current one at Sheffield Wednesday.