What happened to the £14m Chelsea signing who didn't play for them for seven years
A Chelsea player once spent eight years under contract at the club after joining in a £14 million deal - only to not play in seven of them.
During the early to mid-2010s, the Blues received a number of questions over their policies relating to academy and fringe first-team players, given the vast amount of players that they loaned out to other clubs.
In the 2016/17 season, for instance, Chelsea had a staggering 38 players out on loan at one stage, playing football in various countries across the world.
A number of players found themselves at Dutch Eredivisie side Vitesse - a route so common that they were dubbed Chelsea's 'B' team by fans.
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The outcome of the loan policy was, usually, that players eventually rose enough in market value for Chelsea to either sell them on for profit, or they were simply released if they were not good enough.
Mason Mount and Fikayo Tomori were rare exceptions, with the young pairing parachuted into the first-team under Frank Lampard's charge.
Then there were players who had been signed, ready for the first team, for relatively hefty sums - only to end up in the loan vortex.
One of those players was left-back Baba Rahman, who joined Chelsea for £14 million from FC Augsburg during Jose Mourinho's last transfer window in charge in 2015.
Aged 21, Baba was a prospect for the immediate future, and made his debut in September before becoming a regular starter under Mourinho.
He made 23 appearances in all competitions during the 2015/16 season, continuing to receive game time after Mourinho was sacked in December and replaced by the returning Guus Hiddink.
After Antonio Conte was appointed in the summer of 2016, however, Baba was swiftly moved on a season-long loan back to the Bundesliga with Schalke.
Across a period of seven years, up to when he was released by the club, Baba didn't play a single match for Chelsea.
He tore his anterior cruciate ligament in January 2017 while playing for Ghana - an injury blamed by manager Avram Grant on the quality of the pitch in Gabon.
The injury ended up keeping the left-back out of action for 15 months before he eventually returned to the Schalke squad in 2018.
He then played just twice in the first half of the 2018/19 campaign, causing Chelsea to recall him and move him to Ligue 1 side Reims.
A spell in Spain with Mallorca followed, but Baba only made two appearances before suffering another knee injury. The loan was curtailed after it was discovered in January 2020 that he needed further surgery.
Following his return to fitness, Baba played in his fourth country in 18 months after agreeing to join Greek club PAOK.
He spent the 2021/22 season at Championship side Reading, where his impact across 29 appearances encouraged the Royals to extend his loan spell for a second campaign.
If you're wondering why Baba was still a Chelsea player at this stage, it was because the Blues gave him a one-year extension to his existing deal in the summer of 2019 as a result of his extensive injury issues.
They then extended it by a further year when sanctioning his second loan to Reading in 2022.
He was finally released by the club in the following summer, by which point he had amassed enough time at Stamford Bridge to become Chelsea's longest-serving player.
Baba subsequently returned to Greece and signed a permanent contract with PAOK, where he has enjoyed an impressive two-and-a-half year stay to date.
He is a key player for PAOK, who reached the Europa League play-off stage this season before losing to Celta Vigo.
They finished in third place in the Greek Super League last term behind traditional powerhouses Olympiakos and Panathinaikos.
But Olympiacos are, by their standards, having a relatively poor season this term and sit in third, with Panathinaikos nine points further back.
PAOK are currently second, two points behind leaders AEK Athens.
He has yet to add to the last of his 52 Ghana caps earned in 2023, having elected to take a break from the national team due to his injury history.
Speaking to BBC Sport Africa in 2024, Baba admitted that he 'owed a lot' to Chelsea for the way they supported him during his various injury recoveries - and credited one member of the medical staff for convincing him not to retire from football altogether.
"I am sad things didn't work out at Chelsea. I just had so many bad injuries whilst I was there, and because I wasn't 100 per cent fit I wasn't able to give my absolute best," he admitted.
"I owe them a lot because it was Dr Paco [Biosca, who was Chelsea's medical director] who convinced me not to retire after my second ACL injury.
"It had taken me 18 months to come back and, when the doctor told me I had another ACL injury, I decided that I had had enough. I told my family that I was quitting.
"But Dr Paco said that he had seen other players come back and promised that, if I was patient and mentally strong, that I could do it too.
"I slept on it and decided that I wanted to fight for my career. I am grateful that football has given me a second chance.
"I'm just trying to enjoy it to the last moment.
"People know about my injury history and it has been a really difficult few years. I just want to enjoy my club football again and then I know my international career will take off again too."
Topics: Chelsea, Football, Premier League
Ryan Smart