The Chelsea Transfer Thread or Linha de transferência de Chelsea

It's a cursed number.

 

We had a player named Mute?

 

He's doing well for Fiorentina now.

 

And an interesting story on that number.

I hate to be negative, but there’s good reason, I promise. No sooner had the promise of hope and excitement of a new signing in the form of our new Portuguese winger been thrust upon us, it was taken away just as quickly by the news the new boy is to wear the number 7 shirt.

You see, the number 7 shirt is a curse. It’s not a particularly long-standing one, rather a more recent revelation, but the fact is, previous Chelsea occupants of the number made famous worldwide by so many legendary names have….failed to live up to their billing, shall we say?

The inception of squad numbers wasn’t for everyone, but some fifteen years down the line, it leaves us with such facile trivia that you can’t help but be intrigued. John Spencer was the first permanent owner of the 7 shirt at Stamford Bridge, and he was pretty good to be fair to him, scoring goals fairly regularly, some big goals, and was generally likeable. Unfortunately, it seems to go a bit pear-shaped as you move on.

In 1997, French utility player Bernard Lambourde arrived in SW6, and whilst he wasn’t particularly bad at what was asked of him, he was neither a first teamer, nor the calibre of player you expect to see in such a notable, regular XI shirt. Evidently, those at the club agreed, quietly shifting Lambourde to 21, and handing the 7 to Bjarne Goldbaek.

Now I loved Barney. He was something of a cracking gem on Championship Manager 97/98, and when he joined Chelsea from FC Kobenhavn there was some excitement. He never really lived up to his computer game billing though, and struggled to hold down a regular place in an ever-evolving Chelsea team beginning to really experience success. He did, however, score a total screamer away to Tottenham, and thus will forever be a hero to me.

At the turn of the century, with Bjarne’s departure down the road to Fulham, he handed the number to World Cup winning captain Didier Deschamps. He was magnificent at times, but clearly past his best days, and like his legs, his ability began to decline throughout the season. It was as if his fading signified the problems ahead for this famous shirt – as he was about to hand it over to a man whose name Chelsea fans still like to avoid saying.

Winston Bogarde. Not much more really needs to be said, but for the sake of a few more words, I’ll simply say he never really did what he was supposed to. He never really did anything to be blunt, but he collected a sizeable wage for his contribution and seemed pretty happy to do so. Unfortunately he sullied the 7 shirt, or any other shirt at the club, and more importantly, totally cursed it forever. If the previous occupants of the number were hit and miss, we were now staring into the abyss.

Not that we’d necessarily have known it in 2003, when Claudio Ranieri had enough of dear Winston and brushed him aside from the squad list altogether. Romanian hitman Adrian Mutu came in and took the number 7, and exploded out of the gate in fine form. Did I tease you too much there? Apologies if so, because after some on-field struggles and well-documented extra-curricular activities, Chelsea were down one world-class striker, and the number 7 had another name on its hit list.

With Mutu’s departure, the shirt remained vacant for a little while. Discussion of such a curse was now occasionally part of matchday conversation. A discussion which became a little bit more regular when Jose Mourinho signed Maniche on loan in 2006 and duly threw him under a bus immediately by assigning him the shirt of doom. Eleven appearances (just five starts) and a red card against West Ham later, and he returned from whence he came, doing little to allay the fears of a cursed shirt.

False hope was once again given to all in the summer of the same year, when the protracted transfer of Andriy Shevchenko finally went through for some £30m. The number seven vacant for a player who had worn it his entire career? No problem, the Ukrainian was the saviour for the number, for Mourinho, for the entire club it seemed. Two years down the line, and it’s probably safe to say that his name is etched in the indelible history of this unfortunate number.

 

Quaresma's number 18 mate.