Chelsea transfer issue exposed with eight deals as Mauricio Pochettino handed major $56m dilemma

Chelsea transfer news as Mauricio Pochettino encounters long-term recruitment issue with historic deals causing current problems for Cobham hopefuls

So much of football is about connections. Be it a striker and their often smaller partner with a telepathic understanding as they link up, or the wily centre-backs with a combined age of 73 and over 1,000 senior appearances between them. There's the fans and their connection to clubs and certain players, to stadia and moments around the place; the manager themselves needs a connection to get across to his players, foster a team, family-like atmosphere with adjoined goals.

The game is a connecting tool for people across the world, an intangible link of ideas and thoughts, methodology and hypotheses. There are overlaps in understanding and values, lessons learnt and ideologies copied, expanded, torn up and other ripped apart.

What is perhaps an understated part of the game is just how valuable these connections and relationships tend to be. The managers who get their players to go to war and the players who get their teammates to follow. Plenty is done on reputation and those that don't have it struggle to make a name.

Meritocracy is spoken of but rarely seen. If it truly existed more commonly then academy players, here comes the Cobham splurge, would surely be afforded more time and opportunities considering the talent, time and effort spent to develop them?

If this is all a business game then don't pretend otherwise because players and fans are the founding members of this thing that we all adore and to see them go to waste or be used as pawns in an otherworldly PR spin is underwhelming.

There are other businesses that do very similar with other products, not human beings, that