Sky Sports commentator Gary Taphouse has carved out quite a funny niche for himself on Twitter. Just to help out fellow sports media employees, he amplifies job listings in football that he sees online.
Usually they slide by pretty quietly, but one from a couple of hours ago has already accumulated over 100 retweets and 50 replies.
It’s a vacancy for a “recruitment analyst” at Chelsea, and you can imagine the responses underneath. From the simple “sign me up!” to the more arch and sarcastic, it’s a free for all.
“We didn’t have a recruitment analyst and spent a billion, or we gave 1 billion to an analyst who is now out of a job,” pointed out one user.
The reaction should be no surprise, given the signings over the last couple of years have largely not worked out. Players like Cole Palmer are the exception, but in the main we have paid a lot for players yet to look like they’re at our level.
Backroom chaos continues
The situation behind the scenes at Chelsea since the new ownership took over has been a total mess, with various commercial roles being filled and then switched around, and one “President of Business” getting hired and then fired in short order.
The sporting side has been no better, with three sporting directors of various descriptions in place (Paul Winstanley, Laurence Steward, Joe Shields) and another one (Christopher Vivell) appointed and then removed after appearing to realise he was a spare part.
An analyst is a much more junior role, but given the disorder we’ve seen so far, we’re unsurprised that fans are rolling their eyes at the news.