Bitterness, Blues and a timely boost as Wesley Fofana makes his departure
After several years of selling an asset for big money each season to reinvest elsewhere in the squad, last summer Leicester City didn’t lose anyone. And look where that’s got us. Now we’re back in the money right when we need it most.
As Wesley Fofana edges closer to his “dream” move to perennial FA Cup losing finalists Chelsea, Leicester fans are in surprisingly celebratory mood, and perhaps slightly bitter too. We couldn’t have predicted this a month ago, nor in March when Fofana leapt to head a vital goal at Rennes, nor ten days before that when he signed the now notorious five-year contract.
But there’s a way to do these things. A way to leave. Even in these dismal days of endless social media speculation, with Leicester fans in journalism circles twerking for likes from supporters of other clubs, there’s still the opportunity to remain classy. Fofana declined that opportunity and probably cares little about the consequences: a terrible reception each time we meet in the future and the nosedive of a legacy that never got off the ground.
Hunger for more
More than ever, Leicester City need players who will play for the shirt. That was clear from the impact made by Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall last season, and the chasm with the team’s performances when he wasn’t on the pitch. After achieving so much in the past few seasons, there’s clearly a danger our players won’t run as hard, won’t contest the 50/50s as fiercely, won’t want it as much as a Brighton or Brentford who are still on the up.
Whatever you think of Brendan Rodgers, he’s been right all along that we needed a refresh this summer, and probably bore the brunt of unfair criticism for trying to reframe that expectation when he’s the one who needs it more than anyone.
So augmenting the celebratory mood, along with the exit of a player who was refusing to play for us, is the anticipation of reinvestment throughout the squad. We need a centre-back or two. With Youri Tielemans also edging out of the exit door, this summer or next, we need a central midfielder who can calmly control games. We might even finally get the elusive right winger even Rodgers is now talking openly about, like the final piece of a jigsaw you’ve been doing for four years.
The problem is we might still be disappointed by how the club spends its imminent windfall.
Sketchy numbers
You’ll have to forgive the sketchy numbers here. It all feels a bit opaque. The thing is that the headlines may refer to an £85 million world record fee for a defender, but if we signed Fofana for £37.5m and St Etienne get 15% of the fee received, then the reported upfront fee of £70m, less that £10m or so heading to France, might represent only a £22.5m profit this summer. This is far from the kind of profit we made on Riyad Mahrez, Danny Drinkwater, Harry Maguire or Ben Chilwell. And we won’t be getting £70m for anyone else any time soon.
Part of the reason Maguire and Chilwell’s departures left a bitter taste was that it felt like they didn’t contribute or achieve anything particularly meaningful for the club. They both played in that period between the Premier League title and the FA Cup win. But it can actually be quite fun to be bitter, and Fofana’s departure is wrapped up in the emotions surrounding his leg break and five-year contract. So let’s revel in that bitterness.
£70 million? £80 million? The Fofana fee figures have floated around for a while now. Yet even as Leicester’s ninth successive Premier League season is well underway, it still feels alien to some of us to be talking in such matter-of-fact or throwaway terms about tens of millions of pounds. It’s jarring to see the way big numbers are carelessly thrown about by kids on social media when you grew up paying £2.50 for a ticket to watch Tony Spearing.
The nouveau riche
In those days, Chelsea were a newly-promoted top division team having suffered relegation four times in the previous three decades. Their finishes between 1991 and 1996 were 11th, 14th, 11th, 14th, 11th.
Without wanting to get all “we were in League One once” about an opposition club, it still feels strange that our players might dream of joining Chelsea when they could have their pick of elite clubs.
But Chelsea is money. Fofana will double his wages, pulling on the shirt of his heroes who went there for the cash when Roman Abramovich first took over, and in a sense the gulf between the rich and the rest will widen again.
That gulf between Leicester and Chelsea suddenly feels massive again, when in the past few years we’ve been used to competing with them for Champions League places and an FA Cup final. Not to mention the highlight of their season being the chance to draw a home game against their biggest rivals to hand us the Premier League title.
It feels like it may be a while before we can have these little digs so why not take the chance when perhaps the most promising young player we’ve ever had decides to jump ship.
Some rampant hyperbole
It all adds to the growing sense among Leicester fans that the good times may be over. We’ve had a hell of a run and this year will be a scrap. A where’s the next win coming from, who’s going to dig us out of this mess kind of season.
Of all the clubs to be playing today. Of all the clubs to be playing in the final hours of the transfer window. We’ve taken a world record transfer fee for a defender off both of them, despite never being that good at defending.
Normally it’s all about the games and the usual array of transfer sagas should be sidelined as the media circus it is, but not this week. Is it going too far to suggest we face one of the biggest weeks in the club’s history to make sure we have a squad that can compete this season?