TalkSport pundit Simon Jordan set out his stall very early when it came to Chelsea’s owners – everyone else was criticising them, so the notorious contrarian decided to praise them.
He picked out one thing to note from the last few weeks – Marc Cucurella’s call-up to the Spain squad for the Euros.
“People were talking about Cucurella, and how useless he was, and how much they spent on him. But nobody’s mentioning that Cucurella has been picked for the Spanish national squad, and so clearly he’s operating at another level.
It’s a bit of a strawman argument, frankly. Cucurella can still be picked for a (pretty weak) Spain squad and still be a bad investment, and a deeply flawed player.
A good player can still be a bad investment
The point is that £60m was an insane amount of money to spend on a player when there were equally good options out there (and in fact in our squad) for half the money.
If you want to judge Cucurella, watch him defending, don’t go by a tournament squad list. The defender has definitely shown some of his good qualities, and may shine further with a new manager in charge, but £60m (and the subsequent sales of Ian Maatsen and Lewis Hall) remains an insane price to pay unless the former Brighton man suddenly ends up as the world’s best player in that position, which just isn’t happening.
It’s the same story with players like Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo. Are they both good? Yes. Could we have got better players for half of the £100m we spent on each of them? Very possibly. Would that have meant we didn’t have to sell vital pieces of the dressing room? Also yes. It’s not just a question of assembling the best XI, it’s a question of resource management.
You can see Jordan make his point in the clip embedded here:
So you accuse Simon Jordan of setting up a “straw man” and then turn right around and set up one of your own, SuperFrank. “If you want to judge Marc Cucurella then watch him defending,” is precisely that, lol! Because if all you do is watch him defend then you entirely miss the quality he’s shown in our build up adn attacking play as an inverted leftback who joins the midfield in possession (i.e., the other 50-70% of the game when we have the ball!). He’s been a real revelation in this position, showing off the intelligence and technical skill he honed as a youth player at Barcelona.
So if you’re going to take a shot at Simon Jordan at least make it an honest one. Otherwise you’re just the pot calling the kettle black!
He’s still a poor defender, easily turned and passed by a quick player of average quality. He’s short, weak and slow not really desirable qualities for a defender. He played decent the last few matches but I’ve seen many better defenders in the lesser teams in the PL.