Chelsea catastrophe needs John Terry to hold them to account

Chelsea don’t need John Terry, but the broadcasters and thus Football365 could really do with the club legend to throw some shade at Todd Boehly, the manager and the players from some studio or other.

Allow us to grant you a peek behind the Football365 curtain for a moment.

Were you to happen upon our bustling newsroom on a Monday morning after an embarrassing Super Sunday defeat for, let’s say, Manchester United, along with the breakfast burrito wrappers wantonly strewn across the floor, Fabrizio Romano’s social media on automatic refresh on the big screen and the steaming coffee trying but failing to cover up the smell of stale alcohol clinging to the senior reporters who still think they’re working on Fleet Street in 1986, you would see two or three fresh-faced journos first Googling ‘Ten Hag sack’, followed by a list of former Manchester United players, in the hope they’ve said something nasty.

(In reality we’re all at home in our pants but allow us a little artistic license).

Roy Keane, Gary Neville, Rio Ferdinand, Paul Scholes, Patrice Evra, in that order. Most clickworthy to least, based on a mixture of gravitas and outrage. Keane, Neville and Ferdinand will always be named in the headline; Scholes and Evra more often than not. A headline with ‘Ex-Man Utd star…’ denotes comments from an un-clickworthy pundit, like Paul Parker, whose insane takes – generally on Marcus Rashford – tend to roll in on email midway through the morning.

We target these individuals because historically they’ve got us the most clicks, and thus the most money. The reason they garner more clicks is because our audience – possibly you – care about what they have to say, whether that be a positive or negative reaction.

In general, our traffic is at its best when Manchester United lose, when one or more of these pundits rant and rave about their former team. That has happened a lot over the last decade, in which time these guys have become household names for the various broadcasters desperate to land them for exactly that purpose.

Just as Manchester United losing is good for us, it’s also been very good for them.

Sky Sports viewers wouldn’t stick around to watch Keane praising another routine United win; they want to see him tearing them to shreds, explaining what he would be doing to them if he was down in the Old Trafford dressing room. We all wait for the catchphrases – ‘This is Manchester United!’; ‘That’s his job!’ – and the awkward exchanges with other members of the punditry team, who don’t know whether to laugh or scan the studio for possible implements to defend themselves with.

The broadcasters benefit more than anyone of course, and should probably think about widening their portfolio of pundits beyond the Red Devil staple to include individuals likely to have their work cut out to deliver jibes, slams and blasts in the coming years. Todd Boehly has – if nothing else – created a grand opportunity for former Chelsea players to harangue him for “killing the club”, the various managers that he’s set to hire and fire, and the “clumsy”, “immature” players who are “dirtying the image of the club”.

Those are all the opinions of ‘Chelsea legend’ Frank Leboeuf, who along with Emmanuel Petit – who is understandably far more vocal on Arsenal – has picked up the punditry baton and is using it to beat his former team. He’s filling a gap in the market that’s an open goal for a group of Chelsea players perfectly placed to hammer those who now play in blue.

Frank Leboeuf has been critical of Kai Havertz

Where’s the Class of 04/05 to deliver these brutal lines? Joe Cole is around, but is too forgiving. Frank Lampard’s far too much of a company man to be of any use when he realises management’s not for him. Didier Drogba has popped up occasionally for big international tournaments, and it would be great to see more of him after he recently said “I don’t recognise my club”.

“Why is John Terry not there? He’s the best captain #Chelsea have ever had. He watches every game. How is he not there at half-time, saying, ‘are you winding me up?’”

Jamie O’Hara was talking about Terry in the dugout, but that’s a non-starter. Currently working in the academy, he would be far better off sitting in the studio as the gruff Chelsea representative, asking the very same question of a fellow pundit – ‘are you winding me up?’ – after they have dared to suggest a draw at Arsenal is a good result. ‘This is Chelsea Football Club’, he could say, before shaking his head at a litany of defensive errors and missed chances.

The broadcasters would roll out the red carpet for the Chelsea legend, at a time when what would presumably be a no-holds-barred style of punditry will be particularly useful when analysing a club set for perpetual crisis under owners who quite clearly have no idea what they’re doing. An impassioned speech deploring the owners of his football club may not be as eloquent as Gary Neville’s, but everyone is going to want to hear it.

Boehly’s Chelsea have been given an easy ride, with Manchester United remaining the basket case club after a calendar year which saw the Red Devils accrue 74 points to the Blues’ 48. The size of United is a big factor in the crisis coverage, but so too is the level of scrutiny on our television screens, and therefore the Football365 news pages, from pundits who draw eyes and thus money by criticising the club they used to win titles for.

Come back, JT. Chelsea don’t need you, but the broadcasters and Football365 do.