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How much will Chelsea save after 10% salary cut, can it help with Coutinho deal?

  /  autty

Chelsea have become the second Premier League club to agree a series of salary-cuts with their players after London rivals Arsenal.

As revealed by Sportsmail last week, Chelsea players have negotiated a 10 per cent pay cut, which will last for four months.

The Blues hierarchy reportedly were keen to implement a 30 per cent reduction, but the 10 per cent cut has been agreed, as opposed to a wage deferral.

But what does that mean for each individual player in the first-team squad, with some players on highly inflated salaries while some are arguably undervalued in the grand scheme of their salary structure.

And, with the money saved over the course of four months, could Frank Lampard invest more heavily in the summer transfer window? Their interest in Phillipe Coutinho has been widely reported.

Sportsmail takes a look at the salaries and figures in-depth, to see how much each player is losing per month as football clubs attempt to cope with the effects of the coronavirus crisis and the subsequent absence of football.

Chelsea's have two players who earn the joint most. While one won't surprise you, the other one perhaps will.

French World Cup winner N'Golo Kante, signed from Leicester City in 2016 and a key player in the heart of Chelsea's midfield, is on £150,000 per week.

Goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga, who signed a seven-year deal after his move from Athletic Bilbao in 2018, is on the same figure, and both players will miss out on £240,000 over the course of four months.

As a result, their salaries will go down to £135,000 per-week until August - still higher than the next set of high earners at Stamford Bridge.

Just £5,000 behind the leading pair is Christian Pulisic, who signed from Borussia Dortmund last summer.

The 10 per cent wage cut will see him lose £14,500 a week, meaning his weekly salary is down to £130,500.

The Blues' fourth highest-earner, alongside Callum Hudson-Odoi, is Willian, who has been at the club since 2013.

However, the Brazilian winger's current contract, with a weekly figure of £120,000 expires at the end of June, with resolutions over potential extensions to contracts still up in the air.

However, for the time being, the 32-year-old and the young England international Hudson-Odoi, will lose £12,000 a week, bringing his weekly salary down to £108k.

Next in line is Olivier Giroud, Jorginho and rather astonishingly, Tiemoue Bakayoko, the out-of-favour midfielder who is currently on loan at Monaco.

The trio are on £110k a week and as a result, their weekly totals will go down to £99,000 after 10 per cent is deducted.

There are five more players who are on a six-figure weekly sum, all on £100,000 a week: Ross Barkley, Reece James, Marcos Alonso, Pedro and Antonio Rudiger.

Their weekly salaries will go down to £90,000, costing them a total of £160k each over 16 weeks.

Meanwhile, club captain Cesar Azpilicueta is on £90,000-a-week alongside Michy Batshuayi, with Andreas Christensen £10,000 further back on £80,000.

Young English duo Mason Mount and Tammy Abraham, who've had breakthrough seasons under Lampard, are on £75,000 and £50,000 respectively, with other first-team players including Kurt Zouma, Emerson, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Willy Caballero all below £50,000-a-week.

What do all these salary reductions mean though, in terms of money saved for the club with income streams nonexistent during the current COVID-19 crisis?

In total, with all the salary data available (which does not include Fikayo Tomori or Billy Gilmour's salary), Chelsea will save themselves £220,580-a-week and more significantly, approximately £3.5million over the course of four months.

While Chelsea, like clubs up and down the country, will look to use the money to keep help basic operations running, as well as avoid laying staff members off, it could also be reinvested into potential summer acquisitions.

Though the money could help in a permanent transfer, it's likely to be more prudent if spent on the salary of a loan signing, as has been rumoured with Barcelona's Coutinho.

The Brazilian, currently on loan at Bayern Munich, could reportedly be available for £70million, though a loan deal could also be on the cards to take the former Liverpool man to London.

In that case, the £3m-plus could go towards paying Coutinho's salary should Lampard want to add to his attacking ranks, with Leicester defender Ben Chilwell and Freiburg forward Luca Waldschmidt also reportedly interesting the Blues this summer.