​This week has brought a transfer story no Sunderland fan wants, along with a flood of speculation across social media and news sites. The supposed news is that Granit Xhaka is trying to force a move to Chelsea to work again with his former manager, Xabi Alonso, who has just been appointed the latest head coach at Stamford Bridge. It’s difficult to dig deeply into this as I write because, truthfully, no one knows the real situation except Xhaka himself—and he’s thousands of miles away playing for Switzerland at the World Cup. A lot has been said about Xhaka in the past few days, and I’m keen to avoid getting drawn too far into it until a concrete conclusion emerges. Until then, speculation and clickbait will fill the void created by the uncertainty surrounding Xhaka’s future, and that seems to be the nature of modern sports journalism at a certain level.
Away from all of this, we’ve heard a lot over the last few days—mainly from Chelsea fans—about the Premier League’s so-called “food chain.” The argument is that when a traditional “Big Six” club comes in for your players, you should simply bow out and accept it. Chelsea have enjoyed plenty of success in recent years, with a Champions League title and numerous domestic trophies over the last twenty years. Yet they head into next season without European football—something Sunderland can offer players that Chelsea cannot currently guarantee. There is definitely a pull there, but I’d also suggest that living in London (it’s not all sunshine) and the vast—and often eye-watering—wages Chelsea can offer still give them an edge over clubs competing in Europe next season.
Chelsea supporters also can’t seem to understand why Sunderland value their captain and Player of the Season at more than £8 million. Just because you don’t want your club to pay more than that doesn’t mean it defines his value to us as the selling club. Being told to simply accept that bigger clubs can pick and choose whichever players they want is a rotten way for football to operate, and it often feels as though the hard work done by clubs outside that elite group can only go so far before the cycle repeats itself. You only have to look at Tottenham, who narrowly avoided relegation last season and are now spending hundreds of millions of pounds while other clubs remain constrained by financial limits, to see an example.
There is a clear pecking order in the Premier League, and the so-called Xhaka saga has highlighted it once again. Sunderland haven’t had much experience of bigger clubs trying to prise away their best players in recent years, largely because we’ve rarely fielded players attracting this level of attention. One thing that can be said, both from this situation and from recent transfer windows in general, is that Sunderland’s board clearly know how to manage SEO.