Leicester City wonderkid Wesley Fofana has spoken about his dream clubs after recent speculation around Chelsea interest. Here is what you should know.
Brendan Rodgers will be left scratching his head after revelations from Kasper Schmeichel and Fofana have been made regarding potential transfers away from the club. Regarding the French defender, there is plenty of news to unpack.
In this piece, I am going to briefly summarise why the wonderkid is so important to Leicester, what he has said, and how likely a transfer away from the King Power could be on the basis of the news.
Leicester City’s best defender
It is an undeniable fact that – statistically – Fofana is the Foxes best defender by a mile. In almost every possible metric – bar his foul tendency – the player dominates the team. In fact, if you measure the defender against stylistically comparable defenders, he is miles ahead of them too.
Using data collected over the last couple of seasons from FB Ref, Fofana is clear of his five closest stylistic comparisons in terms of passing, defensive actions, shot creating actions, and possessive actions.
Looking at his tackling alone, the aggressive defender has made 69 tackles over these couple of seasons, with 46 of those ending in possession gained for the French star. In the middle third of the pitch, he made 25 of those tackles to win the ball higher up the pitch.
Fofana makes the most dribbles, the most pressures, the most progressive passes, and even makes the most passes which lead to a shot. This young French defender is a stylistic archetype and a perfect fit to Rodgers’ style of play.
Words hurt Foxes’ supporters
According to various reports – including Sport Witness – Chelsea have made contact with our wonderkid due to contractual issues with Antonio Rudiger. If accurate, then Little Wes would be aware of this interest from his representatives.
Also if accurate, this would make his recent words made in a Twitter Space revealing. The player was asked what club makes him dream, and he mentioned several names.
"“A club that makes me dream? There are Marseille, Real Madrid, Barça. In the Premier League, there are Chelsea, United, City”"
He mentioned Chelsea in this response. Now, I feel these reports bringing the two together are wide off the mark. In fact, it is very disingenuous reporting to conflate the two together and create a story out of very little.
Fofana was not asked whether he would like to leave Leicester City, and nor was the player asked what team he dreams of playing for. There are also Real Madrid and Manchester City in that list who are interested in the defender, and a team completely uninterested in him – Marseille.
The reports have specifically removed the context of the question he was asked and inputted it into the reports about Chelsea potentially being interested in him. There is obvious doubts as to whether the Blues would have made contact at this point in a season when we know they are not going in for him in the upcoming January window.
Regardless though, Little Wes was perhaps unwise to not mention the King Power side in anyway during his response, as this clearly has allowed his comments to be misconstrued and thus create a story out of little. The player is still inexperienced in public relations it seems.
How likely is a transfer?
I give it a 10% chance. Little Wes is on a contract until 2025 and is stylistically perfect for the Foxes. There is no way LCFC would lose the player for less than three times what they paid for him with so long left on his contract.
The reports which linked the player to the Pensioners are suspect at best and rely on Rudiger not signing a new deal with the Blues. Essentially, there needs to be room at Stamford Bridge before any of the reports are remotely accurate.
Secondly is the complete farce trying to claim Fofana is interested, just like the Rodgers speculation. Our French star has simply stated that they – along with several other super clubs and historic clubs – make him dream. There is nothing wrong with that.