Chelsea predictably dealing with a player citing the David Luiz precedent

Chelsea and Willian both think it’s the other’s turn to make a move regarding the Brazilian’s contract extension. Whoever goes next, the club will have to deal with the precedent they foolishly set and then even more foolishly broke.

Chelsea have only two players over age 27 with more than 1,000 minutes this season: Cesar Azpilicueta and Willian. Willian is the eldest of the two at age 31, and has so far kept the much younger Callum Hudson-Odoi and the even older Pedro from getting much of a foothold in the team, injury (Hudson-Odoi) and personal issues (Pedro) notwithstanding. Like everyone else in the squad, Willian is there on merit. He is not the token old guy any more than the younger players are there simply because of the transfer ban.

Chelsea and Frank Lampard expect Willian to remain an important member of the squad beyond this season, but the terms of him extending past June are stuck on uncertainty over who has done what in their contract negotiations. The club claim to have made an offer, but Willian says he is still waiting to hear of such a thing. He says he wants to stay, and the club say they are ready for him to sign the offer he denies having received.

One potential reason for the awkward tango is the duration of the extension Willian supposedly wants: like his countryman David Luiz, he wants Chelsea to offer him two more years, despite being over 30 years old.

As we said when Chelsea agreed to extend Luiz two years over the summer, the single-year contract for players over 30 rule was a silly rule foolishly broken.

John Terry, Ashley Cole, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba – among others – deserved multi-year contracts. Had the club given any of them a two year deal (or longer), the precedent would have been weakened to a mere trend. That would have given the club more leeway with players in future negotiations. Rather than tell players “We don’t do this because reasons, and you’re our proof” – which comes off as pigheaded rather than tough – they would have been able to say “We do, but only for for players like those. Frankly, you’re not one of those.” And no one could argue with that.

At the very least, it would have shown those players the respect they deserved for their abilities, accomplishments and service to the club.

But since the club took an uncompromising position against those players, they were stuck with them as precedent. Whenever the club broke the precedent, it would necessarily be for a player far below the level of Drogba, Terry, Lampard and Cole; and that would set the standard for two year contracts at a much lower level than they could have had.

That low standard was David Luiz.

Any player over 30 now merely has to show that they can contribute more to the team than David Luiz to make a compelling, good-faith case for a multi-year extension. As Chelsea learned over the summer, that means simply not throwing such a tantrum over playing time during preseason that the manager and Marina Granovskaia execute your departure over the final week of the transfer window.

Low standard, indeed.

Perhaps the club are worried about Willian following the Luiz precedent. Both of our regular, long-term readers will know that we will never be able to be full fans of Willian because of the post-FA Cup Instagram incident regarding Antonio Conte. That alone is enough to question his maturity, professionalism and commitment to a manager.

Willian is also a classic “love the one you’re with” player in terms of speaking about his managers. Every manager is so great to work with until the next one comes along who makes things so much better than they ever were under the guy who he was just saying was so great.

That incident and that tendency may have Chelsea’s decision-makers wondering if Willian would be David Luiz redux if they offered him a Luiz-style post-30 two-year contract.

A shift in formation, a downturn in performances or a new signing could all jeopardize Willian’s place in the side months down the road. Given Willian’s history and the recent experience with Luiz, Chelsea are justified in wondering if those scenarios would lead to both sides quickly and publicly regretting the second breach of precedent.

Chelsea should never have let themselves get to the point where single-year contracts for players over 30 became the club’s policy, official or otherwise. But they did, and they compounded that static error by changing course for an undeserving player who promptly showed just how undeserving he was of the courtesy.

Willian has been one of Lampard’s most important players this season, and his talents and on-pitch professionalism have been essential to the team and an example to players like Callum Hudson-Odoi and Christian Pulisic. But the club are understandably wary of things going askew before the ink is dry.

On the plus side, if Chelsea do offer Willian a two-year deal the precedent will be well and truly broken. They can then feel comfortable extending Cesar Azpilicueta beyond 2022 and N’Golo Kante well into his 30’s.