Lauren James, Millie Bright and Emma Hayes’ top 15 Chelsea signings – ranked

It took a bit of time for Bethany England to be a success at Chelsea. She joined the club from Doncaster Rovers Belles ahead of the 2016 season, but found herself out on loan at Liverpool just over 18 months later, having struggled to adapt to the new, full-time life in London. England has since admitted that she felt like she wasn’t wanted when she was sent out to join the Reds, but she changed her mindset, thrived on Merseyside and returned to Chelsea to become a star.

There were so many big moments for England at the club from there, with the Conti Cup final in 2020 one that stands out in particular. It was the one title missing from Chelsea’s trophy cabinet and her brace delivered it, the second goal coming in the 92nd minute.

Sadly, England’s role became a reduced one before her departure in January 2023, when she joined Spurs for a then-British record fee. But the 2019-20 Chelsea Player of the Year deserves a place on this list because of the huge contributions she made to 10 trophies before that point.

A player who is sure to rise up this list in the years to come, Chelsea didn’t hesitate to pay a then-British record fee for Lauren James back in the summer of 2021 and Hayes showed remarkable patience to get the England star back on the right track after a frustrating season of niggling injuries at Manchester United.

“Emma is always helpful,” James said last year. “She’s played a massive role in just getting me back to being myself again. She just says, ‘Enjoy it. Start enjoying the moments.’ Obviously, I’ve had two years of just constant injuries. She managed me well and it’s allowed me to find my feet again.”

James barely played in her first year at the club but it was all part of the plan and she has shown her remarkable talent on so many occasions in the two seasons since. Still only 22 years old, it feels like the sky is the limit for her.

Pernille Harder had a lot to live up to when she was signed by Chelsea in 2020, as she did so for a world-record fee. But this is Harder we are talking about, a player who thrives under pressure, and her three years at the club were an unequivocal success.

The Dane’s goals were crucial when the Blues reached the Champions League final for the first time in 2021 while her performance off the bench in the 2023 Women’s FA Cup final was one of her most memorable, as she single-handedly changed the game to inspire her team to another Wembley victory.

Injuries stop Harder from ranking further up this list, but she is certainly one of Hayes’ greatest-ever signings. Her contributions helped Chelsea win three successive league and cup doubles as they established themselves as England’s dominant force.

A player that Hayes herself has declared a Chelsea legend, Hedvig Lindahl joined the club back in 2015 when she was, in the manager’s words, “at the top of her game”. The quality and experience she was able to bring to the goalkeeper role was crucial at a vital time in the Blues’ journey, as it was when they first started to win major honours.

Lindahl was between the sticks when Chelsea won all of their first four major honours, starting with the FA Cup in her first season. She helped make that a double when they won the WSL for the first time shortly afterwards, and it was a feat she and the team would repeat in the 2017-18 season.

“I think she transformed our results on the pitch,” Hayes said of Lindahl back in 2021, ahead of the pair reuniting in Chelsea’s Champions League clash with Atletico Madrid. “She will go down as a legend of the football club for the contribution she made to the trophies that we’ve won. I never underestimate Hedvig Lindahl. I know her qualities inside out and I’m very grateful and thankful for what she’s done for this football club.”

Maren Mjelde’s involvement on the pitch may have waned in recent seasons, especially this year due to injury, but her influence off the pitch is also part of what makes her one of Hayes’ best-ever signings. “She is a quiet leader and has been the mother hen of this group for several years,” the manager explained.

Though that shouldn’t overshadow what a great footballer Mjelde has been for Chelsea either, playing a significant role in 12 trophy wins, a total which could increase by one this weekend before she ends her eight-year spell with the club. Mjelde has so often been able to bring incredible composure to pressure moments, even when she hasn’t played a lot, and her conviction from the penalty spot has been important in numerous big games.

“She has been involved in this team in several positions and has an innate ability tactically and an awareness to drop off in the right situations, but also in possession she will give the team a lot,” Hayes said previously, adding: “Maren is one of the most underrated players in the world.”

Another gem plucked from Scandinavia, Guro Reiten joined Chelsea in 2019 off the back of some outstanding performances in her native Norway, with Hayes sensing that she was ready to take the next step and become a star at the highest level. Few were aware of someone the coach described as “one of the most talented creative players in the world” at that point, but they knew exactly why Reiten had earned such top billing by the end of her first season in England.

The forward was Chelsea’s best player as they lifted the first of four WSL titles in succession in 2020, her goals and assists stealing the show while her incredible work ethic off the ball made it all possible.

In the four years since, she has grown as a person and a leader and been a dependable asset in an increasingly youthful forward line, even with some injuries here and there. Reiten has been an integral part of Chelsea’s dominance in England and produced some truly unforgettable moments in blue.

One of the most important players for Chelsea in the era in which they won their first trophies, Katie Chapman joined the club from Arsenal in 2014 and her 20 years of experience, which had seen her lift 25 trophies to that point, were huge in helping the Blues reach the next level.

Chapman was the captain, and a brilliant one at that, as Chelsea won that first FA Cup, and she would lead them to another three trophies before retiring at the end of the 2017-18 season.

The club’s Player of the Year in 2016, the England international was a battling midfielder whose work ethic made her a fan-favourite. She might have only represented the Blues for four years, but they were perhaps the most significant years in the team’s history, thus earning her a spot high up this list.

One of the first signings that Hayes made when she was appointed Chelsea manager midway through the 2012 season, Eni Aluko was a central figure when the Blues broke through that glass ceiling and started to pick up their first major honours.

Named the club’s Player of the Year in 2015, and to the PFA’s WSL Team of the Year, one of Aluko’s most memorable performances for the club came in that season’s Women’s FA Cup final, the first to be played at Wembley. The former England star provided the assist for Ji So-yun’s winning goal and collected the Player of the Match award for her efforts, as Chelsea won a first major trophy on the women’s side.

There were plenty more moments like that, too, as Aluko’s goals helped Chelsea win a further four trophies before she departed in 2018 as the women’s team’s all-time top scorer.

It was always going to be hard for a goalkeeper to succeed Lindahl, but Ann-Katrin Berger, who arrived six months before the Swede departed, took to that test like a duck to water.

Her five-and-a-half years at the club were never easy, with Hayes always keeping the goalkeeping department well-stocked and competitive, but Berger constantly rose to the challenge to be Chelsea’s No.1. That she had to recover from a second battle with thyroid cancer in the midst of it all, having first been diagnosed in 2017 while at Birmingham, made her journey to the top of the very game all the more incredible.

When she left the club earlier this season, joining Gotham in the United States after finally being usurped in the starting XI by Hannah Hampton, Berger did so with 10 trophies to her name, having been named in the PFA Team of the Year three times and twice made the podium for The Best FIFA Goalkeeper award. Chelsea have never had a better goalkeeper.

In recent years, several of Hayes’ signings have taken time to really find their place in the team and, as such, make their mark. Niamh Charles and Jess Carter are two who have only really settled into the right positions in the last year or so and will surely be among the names on this list in due course, and Erin Cuthbert is another in that same category.

However, what has been most impressive about the Scotland international’s time at Chelsea, and what sets her apart to land a spot here, is that she has almost always been a regular starter, even if it has only been in the last couple of years that she has found her home in midfield. Hayes has always found a place for Cuthbert in the team because she knew the qualities she brought to the table, wherever it may be from.

Cuthbert has played just about every position on the pitch on her way to making 200 club appearances, wearing the armband and winning 13 trophies. “She’s like a hound dog, she’s a permanent pest,” Hayes said with a smile during the 2020-21 season. “She is prepared to do all the sh*tty jobs and she does them at the top level. I love that human.”

Magdalena Eriksson wasn’t an incredibly well-known player when she signed for Chelsea from Swedish side Linkopings back in 2017, but Hayes was aware of her potential and the defender realised it during her six years with the Blues. Her game went to the next level and she became a real leader, named Chelsea captain in 2019, as well as one of the best defenders in Europe.

Eriksson departed in the summer of 2023 having won five league titles, four FA Cups, two Continental Cup trophies and the Community Shield, while also playing her part in that historic Champions League final run. Unsurprisingly, her biggest individual accolades came while she was a Chelsea player, too, in the form of the Diamantbollen, Sweden’s annual award for the best female footballer, and a place in the FIFPRO World XI.

Chelsea have signed a lot of under-the-radar names over the years, but securing a genuine superstar works too, and that is what they did when they brought Sam Kerr to the club in late 2019. Five years on, it’s incredible to think that she was written off by many in her first few months at the club, especially given her record-breaking exploits in Australia and the United States. She’s certainly proven the doubters wrong on her way to becoming a Chelsea great.

Kerr has bagged 99 goals in just 128 appearances for the Blues, so many of those vital match-winners in the biggest games. Her record at Wembley speaks for itself: four games, five goals, three FA Cup wins and a Community Shield; she loves the big stage. Those are just four of the 10 trophies she has lifted for this club and fans will hope there are many more to come, with her contract set to expire this summer.

When Millie Bright arrived at Chelsea in 2014, she was a promising young player still over 18 months away from a senior England debut. Fast-forward 10 years and she’s a lynchpin for club and country, an experienced and reliable centre-back who has captained the Lionesses to a World Cup final and been named the Blues’ skipper, too.

In that decade, Bright has developed drastically to become one of the top defenders in the game and a player integral to the success Chelsea have enjoyed in Hayes’ tenure. She has won 14 trophies with the club, a total that is sure to only increase as the 30-year-old looks nowhere near done at the highest level. She has collected plenty of individual accolades for her efforts as well, twice named to the FIFPRO World XI and making the WSL’s PFA Team of the Year on three occasions.

It’s hard to put into words just how important Fran Kirby has been to Chelsea’s rise. The Blues paid a British-record fee to secure the services of the 22-year-old back in 2015, after her performances for Reading had convinced then-England boss Mark Sampson to make her the only second-tier player in the Lionesses’ World Cup squad, and she has lived up to the hype with nine wonderful years in west London.

It has not been an easy spell, either. Kirby has had injuries and she’s had long periods of illness, all of which have threatened to stop her shining. But the playmaker has always, admirably, battled through and come out strong, helping Chelsea to win 13 titles while becoming the team’s all-time top scorer.

“She’s been instrumental in the history we have created here,” Hayes said during a 2020-21 season in which Chelsea won a treble and reached the Champions League, all while Kirby was absolutely unplayable. “Her relentless pursuit of excellence and winning, two things I love the most, have meant that she strives for more all of the time – not even more, she just strives for better.

“I think that’s been mirrored by who she has grown into as a person. She’ll probably say the same, Chelsea and Fran Kirby are a perfect match, in every way, shape and form.”

Hayes was not the manager of Chelsea when she first spotted Ji So-yun, arguably the greatest foreign import in WSL history. That moment came when she was working as Jim Gabarra’s assistant at Sky Blue FC, just before the United States’ top-flight folded ahead of the 2012 season. The team had the chance to go to Japan to play some games and they did, coming up against INAC Kobe. It was there that Hayes came across this wonderfully-talented South Korean midfielder, who was shining for the Japanese side.

A year later, Hayes was in charge of Chelsea when they themselves were invited to the country for a tournament which would culminate in INAC Kobe facing the Blues in the final. Ji’s magic was back on show as she scored in a 4-2 win for her side, and Chelsea worked hard over the next few months to bring her to London, announcing her signing in 2014. In eight years with the club, she made 210 appearances, scored 68 goals and won 13 trophies, including five league titles.

Twice named Players’ Player of the Year in the WSL, and five times to the Team of the Year, Ji was exceptional in the Chelsea midfield throughout her stay and will go down as one of their greatest-ever players – and Hayes’ greatest-ever signing.