Chelsea’s fullback transfer rumours are about meeting some needs – not the squad’s tactical and personnel needs, but those of a desperate, ill-informed segment of the audience. There’s nothing wrong with fan service, as long as it’s for actual fans.
Travis’ adjacent piece looks at the tenuous relationship between smoke and fire in the rumours about Chelsea’s pursuit of a fullback come January. Setting aside what anyone thinks they know about what Frank Lampard and his staff are thinking about the current squad, or the forecasts about Chelsea successfully appealing their transfer ban in time for the winter window, these rumours are as unfounded as they are transparent in their genesis.
Cesar Azpilicueta has been the scapegoat for everything that happens on defence this season. Marcos Alonso, who previously filled the scapegoat role, is now living rent-free in the minds of those who, in turn, live rent-free in their parents’ basement. The prospect of Alonso filling in and perhaps challenging at left-back is more than they can even. And Reece James, the only relief in sight for Azpilicueta and the only hedge against an Azpilicueta-Alonso fullback battery, is still several weeks away from the lineup.
Put all this together and the clickable rumours write themselves. Anxiety rooted in ignorance increases the usual hunger for transfer rumours, especially coming off a summer with none.
No one should be surprised to find the sports page of a tabloid promoting catchy headlines that tap into an audience’s desires only to reveal a complete absence of real news and analysis.
For our part, we prefer catchy headlines that stimulate audiences who can understand them and inflame those who don’t, and then follow it up with a sometimes numbing depth of analysis, but hey, to each their own.
Nor is there anything wrong with a bit of fan service, simply giving the fans what they want. We did, for example, recently encourage our colleague Olaoluwa to suggest a shirt sponsor that would run deep amongst our Nigerian readers, who make up the majority of our audience. Besides, I think we can all (except for Kevin) agree that Dangote Group carries much more gravitas and social cachet than Taco Bell.
Back to the transfer rumours, generously, we could call them “hope” for their intended audience. But while they are servicing this audience, they are still not fan service, because the intended audience are barely fans.
The people latching on to the fullback rumours are the red-X brigade. They are the people who pick apart every Cesar Azpilicueta play in minute detail but stripped of context of what happened and is happening ahead and alongside him. Some of that ignorance is natural, but some is willful. You can’t fairly judge Azpilicueta’s defensive performances without accounting for those of Jorginho.
And that brings us right back to the standard fault line running through the Chelsea chatter for the last 20 months. Cesar Azpilicueta is old-school Chelsea: Rafael Benitez, Jose Mourinho, Guus Hiddink and Antonio Conte before Maurizio Sarri. He was a dutiful defender and leader for all five, but his service under the first four means he is one of “them.” Marcos Alonso is purely Antonio Conte. Alonso was an anonymous journeyman until Conte made him a world-class wingback and a beloved, multiple trophy winning Blue.
Putting their performances from last year and this year into a proper football context and analysis scheme means asking the Questions That Must Not Be Asked about the Player and Coach Who Must Not Be Questioned.
No, this is not putting the blame on Maurizio Sarri and Jorginho. That would be inaccurate, and would let their janissaries off the hook. They are the issue.
These rumours are all about appealing to the thin segment of the Chelsea audience who arrived in clicky and cliquey droves last summer, a segment the English media may be concerned about losing as the club becomes Frank Lampard’s in a way that it never took on the coach’s identity last season.
We fully understand the desire and imperatives to write for an audience. We’re just as on board with the occasional fan service to get us through an international break. Just don’t let anyone think this fan service is for Chelsea fans, or that these rumours are about any actual substance.