As Wesley Fofana sat in the King Power stands earning a healthy sum watching his fellow teammates badly attempting to do the job they were paid to do, it would be interesting to know what he was thinking. All we were left with, is cryptic social media posts and a limp clap appreciation for James Maddison’s excellent goal. But he seems a bit confused about the situation, so being the good samaritan that I am, I decided to lay it out and dispel some myths that Fofana might be confused about. Don’t pay me yet Wesley, you might not like what you’re about to read.
The Situation
Chelsea made two bids for Leicester City’s star centre-back thought to be in the region of £60million. This has been outright rejected by the East-Midlands outfit who are said to only want to entertain anything that exceeds the world record transfer for a defender that they accepted for Harry Maguire in 2019. So essentially anything north of £80million will seal the deal even though Leicester City would much rather keep their prized asset. Chelsea have since gone quiet and strangely that’s when things got messier.
Despite no agreement being reached Wesley Fofana, has somehow agreed personal terms on a 6-year contract with Chelsea according to the ever-reliable transfer news expert Fabrizio Romano. Just for clarity, that is a breach of Premier League rules T.1. and T.1.2.
Since then, he and Brendan Rodgers came to the bizarre agreement that he should not play in the Southampton game due to his mentality which Leicester pathetically lost due to more shocking defending. There will be more twists and turns to come before the transfer deadline closes on the 1st of September, with the next league game ironically against Chelsea on the 27th of August.
Leicester City are not holding Wesley Fofana back
When the Foxes signed the young Frenchman back in 2020 as a 19-year-old, they knew they would be getting a player destined for greatness. He has many attributes that will make him a star centre-back in the future but he was still a rough-cut diamond that needed shaping into the true gem that he will become. Brendan worked closely with him and he became a key part of a team that disappointingly finished 5th but did win their first ever FA Cup.
Then disaster struck in the summer of 2021 when his leg was broken in a pre-season friendly with Villarreal. Leicester nursed him back to health with the best medical care and before he had even kicked another ball they rewarded him with an improved 5-year contract. This took him from earning around £50k a week to £120k a week, making a wealthy young man even more wealthy. Remarkably in his first game, he scored a crucial goal at Rennes in a key European aggregate victory.
Leicester City are not a stupid outfit: they completely understand that Fofana’s career will not be at the King Power stadium forever, which is why they were savvy enough to pay him well to keep him happy and protect their investment. He will still be worth a lot of money the next summer and the summer after that even if he decides to go on strike. The foxes fans get this as well and were happy to enjoy the time we had with him.
There was always going to be interest from more wealthy suitors and Leicester would accept this on terms that suited them. There is no release clause in his contract meaning he needs to honour the agreement that he signed. To be paid to play football and not sit sulking in the stands feeling sorry for himself. Maybe this isn’t the whole story and maybe his agent has more of a say, who knows, we’ve only got cryptic Wesley’s social media posts and Brendan Rodgers teeth-grinding interviews to go on.
Leicester’s valuation is not too high
So both the club and the fans at Leicester City have the intelligence to understand that Fofana will leave at some point. So it’s very surprising to learn that Fofana lacks the intelligence to understand how Leicester would allow him to leave his multi-million-pound contract. Let me lay it out simply.
Harry Maguire is nowhere near as good as Wesley Fofana. He was 5 years older than Fofana is now when he left the club and will most definitely not go on to make the Red Devils a profit due to his patchy (being kind) form. They gladly paid £80M. LCFC also paid Saint-Etienne considerably more for Fofana than they paid Hull when signing Maguire.
Strangely, Fofana is reportedly frustrated that City are pricing him out of a move. It’s convenient that he said that, considering it sounds like the exact type of thing Chelsea would need him to say to help the move along. But I’m sure Chelsea wouldn’t engage in that kind of chicanery what with them being such a wholesome football establishment.
Little Wes needs to seriously rethink his rationale for this because it doesn’t hold water The East Midlanders could be asking for much more than the 80 mill’ and still have justification for their reasoning.
In any case, I would be disappointed if Leicester didn’t stick to their guns on this one. They hold all the cards and can for once play it very cold and reiterate to their employee their expectations of him quite clearly.
There has been no acceptable reason given as to why Fofana is unable to play
According to Brendan Rodgers, it was decided between himself and the player that Fofana should not play against Southampton. This is unacceptable from both Fofana and Rodgers.
Is the thought of all the money he could have in his bank account weighing him down and making his legs sluggish? Is the possibility of playing Chelsea making him nauseous? Are the bright lights of London already affecting his vision?
Other than a complete lack of professionalism, I cannot see why he was not made to play and do his job and we should all be asking the same questions next week at Stamford Bridge when the team news is announced.
Brendan Rodgers might also be seeing a big Fofana transfer as his ample opportunity to get some transfer incomings and enabling this pathetic behaviour to help him engineer the move. Rodgers constantly mentioning a lack of transfer activity in every interview might have revealed his hand. This is a typically limp and soft approach, thinly disguised as firm action from the under-pressure Northern-Irish boss. With results sorely lacking, maybe a new manager might have a better idea of how to handle it.
Chelsea is not Fofana’s dream move
Sorry Chelsea fans, but Fofana has mentioned your club amongst a cluster of other names when talking of his dream move with Actufoot:
"“A club that makes me dream? There’s Marseille, Real Madrid, Barca, in the Premier League, there are Chelsea, [Manchester] United, [Manchester] City”"
One amongst six certainly dilutes his message, but it does bring some water to my eye – mainly through laughter. All of this is no surprise to Leicester City as he acted in a similarly petulant way when engineering his move from Saint-Etienne. But the way Leicester City conduct their transfer business should be no surprise to him either. He’s playing a dangerous game with a stubborn football club and could easily wreck his World Cup chances with his renegade actions. Interestingly in his Actufoot interview, he went on to say:
"“But you have to work to make your dreams come true. Through work, you can achieve anything.” Next: Fans will be delighted as talks open for star’s new contract"
Keep this in mind that as the former Saint-Etienne man sits in the stands not working, whilst trying to engineer a move away, the owners continue paying his wages. This is not a man of his word.