are not the season. so if, in the short term, players are signing long contracts, and that is initially helping their balance sheets, where do the potential difficulties lie in the long term for chelsea? so, like you say, the longer term contracts are helping them in the short term. so for example, caicedo signed for £115 million. over five years, that would work out at £23 million per season. because he signed an eight year contract, that works out about £14 million per season. that certainly helps them immediately, because they have less of a transfer fee expense each year. what it does mean is that it is longer, that they need to pay that over 80 years. it also means that if there is a player that doesn t quite work out, their value on the books is going to stay relatively high, so let s say that modric doesn t work out, for