£16,800,000 transfer fee
£87,000 a week
49 games
10 goals

So, by my calculations:

(16800000 + (87000 * 52 * 3)) / 49 = £619,836.74
(16800000 + (87000 * 52 * 3)) / 10 = £3,037,200

(I'm probably being generous in saying Chelsea paid only 3 full years of his wages. I know he was on-loan a lot, but Chelsea were still paying half his wages while he was at Inter, according to this article)

£619,836.74 a game, or £3,037,200 a goal.

Fuck. Ing. Hell.

Far be it for me to stick up for a disgustingly lazy slug like Crespo, who couldn't even summon up the inner strength to pay his electricity bill in London without one of Chelsea's representatives holding his hand, but he scored 25 in 73 games, not 10 in 49.

Still not exactly blisteringly prolific figures, and certainly not for that kind of money.

I see he's a free agent these days, at 32.

And how many of those were starts, and how many were substitute appearances? Mourinho took a dislike to him on his (Mou's) first day at Chelsea, apparently because of his reluctance to learn English (how true this story is I'm not sure because when he came back after the Milan loan he spoke it excellently), and things were difficult from that point on. But the guy's a seriously handy striker.

How about some stats on how much Chelsea paid for each assist by Arjen Robben / Shaun Wright-Phillips?

In the league, Crespo made two starts for every sub appearance, so the argument that he was only sparingly used doesn't hold very much water.

I would imagine that Mourinho took a big dislike to him because he instantly sized him up as a talented striker who was blatantly not trying a leg. That is much worse than being a journeyman centre-forward putting in a good shift most weeks and not scoring many goals.

Hieronymus of Hesselink wrote:

QUOTE:
In the league, Crespo made two starts for every sub appearance

In which case the ratio is one goal every two starts (if we take your own stats, HoH). In fact, until Milan and Inter, his English-language Wiki gives us a ratio of over one goal every two games. Including for Argentina.

Spanish Wiki gives us more detail. .487 goal-per-game. In other words, near as dammit one in two.

No doubt if his winning goal in a Copa Libertadores final had been for Boca rather than for River, I'd find a way to call him a useless sack of shit anyway, but to me, this seems like a perfectly respectable record.

But this is not a thread about Crespo's career, it's a thread about his spell in England.

And you can shave off the sub appearances if you want, but if you're trying to argue that Crespo played well and looked the business during his spell in England, it's an argument that you're not going to win. 25 goals in two years -- in all competitions -- is not exactly a wonderful return from a striker who's getting paid ninety thousand pounds a week.

Twenty days' worth of Crespo's Chelsea wages in 2003 would pay off the rest of my mortgage.

Fair enough then. He was hardly a Winston Bogarde, though...

Cavalry Trouser Tips wrote:

QUOTE:
£16,800,000 transfer fee
£87,000 a week
49 games
10 goals

So, by my calculations:

(16800000 + (87000 * 52 * 3)) / 49 = £619,836.74
(16800000 + (87000 * 52 * 3)) / 10 = £3,037,200

(I'm probably being generous in saying Chelsea paid only 3 full years of his wages. I know he was on-loan a lot, but Chelsea were still paying half his wages while he was at Inter, according to this article)

£619,836.74 a game, or £3,037,200 a goal.

Fuck. Ing. Hell.

Good analysis CTT, but to be really thorough you'll have to run those numbers through the Crespometer©, which will undoubtedly end up adding an extra digit on the final £/goal figure.