Roy Keane couldn’t believe Micah Richards’ claim that Wesley Fofana would be a key player under new Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino, insisting the former Leicester star has “been dreadful” this season.
Fofana joined the Blues from the Foxes for £72m last summer and has endured a difficult debut season at Stamford Bridge, missing a big chunk of the campaign through injury, and looking far from his best when he has played.
The 22-year-old has been no worse than the majority of his teammates, but that’s not saying much, with Chelsea ending the season in 12th having come third under Thomas Tuchel last term.
Tuchel was sacked in September and was replaced by Graham Potter, who was shown the door in April, with Bruno Saltor very quickly followed by Frank Lampard, who’s been in interim charge for the last couple of months of the season.
Pochettino has reportedly agreed to take permanent charge of the club in the summer, and has quite the rebuilding job on his hands despite a mammoth £600m outlay on new players in Todd Boehly’s first season as owner.
But Richards reckons Chelsea will make it into the top four under Pochettino.
“I think Chelsea are going to be really good next season under Poch. Top four, challenging maybe a little bit more. The players that they’ve got, Christopher Nkunku coming in. They need a striker, they’ll get that sorted, but I think Chelsea will be challenging big next season.”
The former Man City full-back then picked out Fofana as one of the key players under Pochettino, to the bafflement of Keane.
“Who?! He’s been dreadful, he’s been dreadful!” Keane said.
Jamie Carragher then highlighted Fofana’s terrible injury record before picking out two players with “pedigree” who could thrive under Pochettino.
He added: “He’s always injured! I think [Enzo] Fernandez has got great pedigree. The goalkeeper is a problem, they’ve got no striker, [Christopher[ Nkunku might come in and make a difference, Mykhaylo Mudryk has obviously come in for a lot of money, he’s got pedigree.”
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Jamie Carragher and Roy Keane have disagreed with Gary Neville over his claim about Arsenal star Declan Rice’s best position for the Gunners and England.
Chelsea are looking for ‘solutions’ to secure a £20m exit but almost none exist, while Wesley Fofana “thought about” taking a whole load off that wage bill.
Roy Keane has warned Jack Grealish that he may “lose that sharpness” unless he increases his game time under Pep Guardiola at Man City.
Roy Keane claims England players showed their “arrogance” in an “awful” second-half display against the Republic of Ireland.
Roy Keane has refused to “write off” Brazil international Casemiro after the Manchester United star’s “unbelievably poor” performance against Liverpool.
England international Cole Palmer has not been included in Chelsea’s UEFA Conference League squad, the Premier League giants have announced.
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