Chelsea's owners 'feared transfer ban', which caused them to sign 26 PLAYERS

Chelsea's recruitment drive in the last season-and-a-half has raised widespread eyebrows but one NBC pundit has claimed that the huge intake at Stamford Bridge was in anticipation of an impending transfer ban.

Since Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital purchased the Blues for £4.25billion, there has been widespread change in both the transfer policy and the playing staff at Stamford Bridge.

They have exceeded the £1billion mark already, bringing in a number of young, if untested, players on long contracts to build a team that can dominant in the future.

Things have not quite gone to plan so far, with Mauricio Pochettino the fourth managerial appointment in that time - as well as Bruno Saltor's caretaker stint - as Boehly and Co endure a tough start to their tenure in the Premier League.

However, former Middlesbrough star turned NBC pundit Robin Mustoe claims that the drive to sign a huge number of players has come in order to offset a predicted future transfer ban, and not leave the club short-staffed should one be imposed.

'I wouldn’t have spent (I have the reason why they did it) all that money so quickly, when you haven’t got the professionals in charge,' Mustoe told The Byline.

'But my understanding is and its from a very very good source that the financial problems that was left with the club, that the new ownership had to go through all the books and by the way they are pretty thorough with all this stuff and there was so many dodgy looking things in the accounts the club thought that they were going to get done.

'Which they have been done, they had been done by the way, they’ve been fined.

'The club were worried that they were going to get another transfer ban and to jump ahead of that potential transfer ban when they said