Chelsea’s £500m profit numbers are impressive – but totally nonsensical

Chelsea made more than £500m in player sales this summer and improved their squad – but it's a little more complicated than that.

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Nizaar Kinsella has been looking back at Chelsea's summer transfers now the English window is shut.

As he points out, according to the club's own numbers, Chelsea spent £349.2m and received 437m. That means a net profit of £87.8m. There were a number of really good sales, and the squad is without doubt better now than it was a few months ago. The club think the amount received will eventually reach £500m when add-ons, loan fees and sell-on clauses are considered, improving their standing further.

Chelsea numbers don't take into account years of spending

But despite that, those number are very misleading. Counting one window's transfers in a vacuum is pretty meaningless. Yes we sold Enzo Fernandez for £125m, but we bought him for £105m. One of those numbers is reflected above, the other isn't.

Looking at this window's numbers alone we made £8m on Deivid Washington. Zoom out a little and you'll see we lost £8m on him in two years, in exchange for 25 minutes of senior football. Of course it works both ways, and we could yet sell a player we bought this summer for a huge profit.

£500m profit is nice – £450m and a £50m midfielder to help the team would have been even better.

The window reached a crazy climax with the Lamine Camara deal coming together – and then suddenly falling apart.