Chelsea Sign Two More Youngsters: Geovany Quenda & Dario Essugo

by
Football money

The transfer window may have closed at the start of February – a month and a half ago – but that has not stopped Chelsea from splashing yet more cash as they continue with their strategy of snapping up the best young players around. After what seemed like a scattergun approach to the transfer market in the early months and years following the Todd Boehly-led takeover, the Blues’ spending began to slow.

More importantly, however, pundits and fans began to see that the club’s transfer activity was not as crazy as it first seemed and there was an underlying strategy. Buying extremely talented, yet very young players, in great numbers, means the club can build a large squad but maintain a relatively low wage bill. With the transfer fees for these players spread out over lengthy contracts – even if that so-called amortisation is now limited to five years – the club is able to stay within the Profit and Sustainability regulations, albeit by also using a few tricks alongside the long contracts and low wages.

Purchasing Costs Under Boehly and Co

The club believe that they can have enough successes from the players they purchase that they will be able to build a first-choice squad capable of winning trophies. Meanwhile, the players who don’t quite make the grade can still be sold on for a profit due to their age and the extra experience they have gained. Some of the costs of acquiring these players and maintaining their vast squad are further offset by outgoing loan deals.

Much as the Blues have spent a humungous sum already, thought to be around £1.3bn, under Boehly and co., the project is very much in its early days. Time will tell whether this strategy will work in the Premier League and whether the club can achieve both of their goals of winning silverware and making money. Or even either of those, with the fans sure to be prioritising one, whilst the owners will be rather keener on the other.

Ultimately the plan will probably rest, as any transfer plan does, on how good Chelsea’s scouting and development is. In gambling it is said that no staking plan can turn a bad strategy into a good one. It is not the staking plan, but the underlying fundamentals of the bets that matter. We believe that will prove to be the case here, and there has to be more to the club’s approach than simply buying up as many promising youngsters as they can and then hoping for the best.

The key, as Brighton have continually proven, is buying the right players at the right price and giving them an environment in which they can develop and fulfil their potential. Whether Chelsea can do that, and whether their transfer strategy has merit, will be seen in the next five years, but they are pressing on with it and have recently added two more players to their vast squad.

Geovany Quenda


Chelsea raided Portuguese giants Sporting Lisbon in a double deal worth around £62m. The more expensive of the two players was 17-year-old Geovany Quenda, who has been valued at £44m in the deal. The transfers were revealed on Sporting’s official club website and a key part of the Quenda transfer is that the youngster will stay with Sporting until the end of the 2025/26 season.

Fans may question the merit of paying well over £40m only to leave a player with his current club for well over 12 months. However, it is that aspect of the transfer that is believed to have been pivotal in the Blues acquiring the player, who typically operates wide on the right, for a sum that, whilst huge, is only around half of the value of his release clause.

Quenda’s Football Career

Quenda, who was born in Bissau (the capital of Guinea-Bissau) in 2007 (wow, that makes us feel old), has played for Portugal at both U17 and U21 levels. He first entered Portuguese football with Benfica but left for Sporting at the age of 13. He is left-footed and has been used on the left of the front three many times by Sporting, but has also played in a more defensive role on the right too, as a wing-back.

He had made 26 league appearances for his club in the 2024/25 campaign at the time of the signing, scoring once but laying on five assists. His pace, creativity and ability to take players on are his major assets and he was named in the Team of the Tournament at the 2024 U17 Euros. He is already strong and appears to possess an excellent temperament, as well as brilliant technique. Blues will have to wait to see him play for Chelsea but several experts believe that wait will be well worth it.

Dario Essugo


Dario Essugo is 20 but in terms of the value of this deal, he is the junior partner, with Sporting saying that his fee was a little over £18m. Born in Lisbon, and of Angolan descent, Essugo is a defensive midfielder who has been on loan in La Liga with Las Palmas. He has made 17 league appearances for the Spaniards and is a highly combative player, as two red cards this term would suggest.

He will have to learn to control himself better but he has the qualities and physicality to succeed in the Premier League and is seen as someone ready to provide cover behind Moises Caicedo and eventually challenge him for his place. He will come to the Blues in the summer and could even feature in the Club World Cup.

Essugo’s Football Career

Like Quenda, he is a Portugal youth international, having appeared at every level from U15 to U21. He played 23 times for Sporting over four seasons, winning two league titles with the club. He then also appeared on loan for Chaves in 2023/24, before his move to Las Palmas this term.

£18m seems like a very good bit of business for a highly promising youngster and is far less of a risk than paying more than double that for a significantly younger player. But the upside with Quenda is potentially far greater and it will be really interesting to see if these two players end up making the grade at the Blues or are added to the list of those footballers who are eventually moved on.