10 Best Players Who Played For Both Chelsea And West Ham
3. Joe Cole
Joe Cole’s precocious talents were West Ham’s worst-kept secret in the late nineties. He broke into the senior team as a teenager and was named club captain at 21. He won the club’s Hammer of the Year award in 2002/03, though was unable to prevent the club’s relegation.
Cole was signed by Chelsea in 2003, backed by the billions of Roman Abramovich’s recent arrival. He spent seven seasons with the west Londoners and made 280 appearances in all competitions, winning three Premier League titles and two FA Cups amongst his list of major honours.
Joe Cole returned to West Ham in 2013 for another season with the Hammers. In two West Ham stints, Joe Cole made 187 appearances, scoring 18 goals with 10 assists. He is the only player to win both the Hammer of the Year and Chelsea Player of the Year awards.
2. Jimmy Greaves
Jimmy Greaves was the most gifted scorer in English football history. Playing four years with Chelsea, from 1957 to 1961, Greaves found the net 132 times in 169 appearances. He was then sold to AC Milan in 1961 but returned to England in the same year with Tottenham.
With Spurs, he scored 268 times in 381 games, becoming one of their all-time greats in the process. He then spent a season with West Ham, where he scored 13 goals in 38 league appearances.
By the time he joined West Ham, his prime was well past him. In total, from 1957 to 1971, Greaves scored 466 goals—for club and country—in 659 appearances. He is one of the greatest ever who played for both Chelsea and West Ham.
1. Frank Lampard
Frank James Lampard was born to be a Hammer. His father, Frank Richard George Lampard, played at the Boleyn Ground for 18 seasons—amassing over 650 appearances in claret and blue.
Lampard joined the West Ham academy in 1994 and went on to play for the Irons until 2001, where he made 172 appearances. Lampard then made the switch from east to west London to join the Blues for around £11m.
Across the next decade, Lampard established himself as one of the finest English players of his generation. He made a name for himself, becoming the club’s all-time top goalscorer with 211 goals to his name, as well as winning three Premier League’s, the Champions League, four FA Cups, two League Cups and the Europa League.