Why Benfica Keep Taking Advantage of Chelsea in the Transfer Market

If there is a club Chelsea should stop doing business with, it is Benfica.

The Portuguese Primeira Liga team routinely take advantage of the Blues' administrative shortcomings in the transfer market.

This slideshow will show you how Chelsea generally get the short end of the stick in transfer deals with Benfica.

Benfica Screwed Chelsea over Big-Time in the David Luiz Deal

Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images

David Luiz: Signed for £21.3 million Plus Nemanja Matic in 2011

When Luiz's name was being linked to major European clubs, Benfica insisted "they would not accept any offer under the €50 [£42] million release clause", per Dominic Fifield at The Guardian.

Negotiating Luiz's transfer fee to Chelsea would start at his unreasonable release clause, so Benfica were putting the onus on the Blues to chip away knowing their management were desperate to land a marquee centre-back.

Benfica ramped up the pressure by ending negotiations and releasing a statement saying Luiz's proposed move to Chelsea collapsed, from SLBenfica.pt via Graeme Bailey at Sky Sports:

"

The negotiations between Benfica and Chelsea F.C with regard to the potential transfer of David Luiz, were concluded today without the parties reaching an agreement.

Benfica are happy to be able to keep in their ranks a player with the sporting quality and moral shown by David Luiz.

Unlike some news that had come up these last few days, David Luiz never tried to force his exit, he is an exemplary professional, worthy of the shirt he wears.

"

This was January 28, 2011.

Several days later, Chelsea rushed through the deal on transfer deadline day.

Why Chelsea Lost Out to Benfica

• Luiz was cup-tied for the UEFA Champions League that season, so the Blues did not need to give up so much.
• Chelsea relinquished a world-class prospect in Matic just to ensure Luiz's transfer did not collapse again. See, Benfica's ploy in walking away the first time influenced the Blues to act irrationally.
• Benfica conveniently avoided discussions about Luiz's positional play in defeats to Academica, Guimaraes and Nacional that season.
• Out of position at left-back during the 5-0 defeat to Porto, Luiz was humiliated by Hulk in a display Zonal Marking's Michael Cox described as "hopeless".
• And, here is the kicker to this transfer, per Jason Burt at The Telegraph: "However, after a series of meetings over the weekend, the two clubs moved closer with the Portuguese lowering their price by €10 million when it became apparent there would be no other bidders."
• The Blues wilted when they were the only club seriously vying for Luiz's services.

Luiz Is Not Improving 

In his fourth season at Chelsea, Luiz has progressively declined.

He averages 0.6 tackles per league game this season; Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi both average higher tackles per game than Luiz (0.9).

Whenever Luiz attempts a tackle in league-play, there is a 77 percent chance he will fail.

Luiz completes 84.9 percent of his passes while his compatriot Dante has a 91 percent pass completion percentage and he attempts 2.3 more long passes per game than Luiz.

Luiz said he turned to God when he was dropped by Blues manager Jose Mourinho.

Chelsea will need to pray for divine intervention if any major European club is stupid enough to buy Luiz from them for £20 million plus.

Chelsea Overspent on Tiago

Alex Livesey/Getty Images

Tiago: Signed for £10 million in 2004

Tiago's transfer fee to Chelsea was unusually high considering his circumstances, per BBC Sport:

"

But relations between Tiago and Benfica became strained when his former agent Jose Veiga was made a director of the club.

Tiago vowed not to play for the Lisbon side while Veiga was involved due to a previous fall-out.

When the club realised his threat was serious they decided they had little option but to give in to Chelsea's advances, rather than keep an unhappy player.

"

Tiago played one season at Chelsea before being sold to Lyon for £6.82 million.

Chelsea had given Lyon £24.4 million for Michael Essien yet did not even bother extracting more money from the French club to make a profit on Tiago.

Instead Chelsea management settled for a £3.18 million loss.

Major Error in Letting Nemanja Matic Go

Christopher Lee/Getty Images

Did Chelsea management not find it odd that Benfica, renowned for their scouting system, were insistent on Nemanja Matic being included in the David Luiz deal?

"Obviously we saw potential in him [Matic] and that's why we hired him," former Chelsea's sports director Frank Arnesen said, from O Jogo via Ben Lyttleton at Sports Illustrated. "Matic is Benfica's player of the moment."

At 6'4", Matic is a dominant presence in midfield, winning headers, making tackles and controlling the flow of the game.

"Matic is excellent but different from [Javi] Garcia. He goes up the pitch more often and constructs more attacks," former Portuguese international Luis Boa Morte said, from A Bola via Daniel Alvarenga at Reuters. "Javi sticked more to defensive tasks."

Matic is so important to Benfica that the club have added a Serbian contingent to the squad in order to keep their star midfielder happy.

Yes, the Blues did not want to keep Matic but it's no excuse to throw him away.

Manuel Fernandes had two separate loan stints away from Benfica before being sold to Valencia in 2007 for £12.2 million.

Luiz is trending downwards while Matic is trending upwards—Benfica win again.

Caveat Emptor

Alex Livesey/Getty Images

Benfica management are too smart for Chelsea. 

The only time Chelsea haven't been burned doing business with Benfica is signing Ramires in 2010 for £17 million.

His influence to Chelsea is evidenced in how manager Jose Mourinho responded to a journalist asking how big a transfer fee it would take for the club to sell Ramires, via Michael Burton at Samba Foot: "No price."

That said, do you know how much Ramires cost Benfica a year earlier? £6.2 million.

Instead of buying Benfica's players, Chelsea need to steal their transfer targets.

In future transfer windows, Chelsea must think caveat emptor (buyer beware) when doing business with Benfica—that applies to Porto too (they sold Jose Bosingwa to Chelsea for £16.3 million).

Statistics via WhoScored, FFT Stats Zone, Squawka and Transfermarkt.
Google+: +allanjiang
Twitter: @allanjiangLIVE