In a very, very curious development in the Emmanuel Fernandez hype machine, the now Nigeria international has gone from lowly Peterborough fringe defender to an international, part of the Scottish PFA’s team of the year, and the rest of Europe’s choice for FIFA. It is a bewildering state of affairs that a defender who isn’t even perceived as that outstanding is nevertheless this vaunted in the annals of football.
The Paradox Of Perception
It is very hard to argue with professional footballers who have voted him personally within their team of the season. Plenty of other predictable choices were in there, a ton of Motherwell and Hearts players, for example, all of whom earned their place without any difficulty at all. But Rangers just have not excelled this season, neither have Celtic, and each team only had one player in that team of the year for Scotland, Nygren for Celtic and our very own Manny at Ibrox.
We don’t know if that is a damning indictment of how bad Rangers have been or an incredible praise of how good Fernandez has been, but his rise from that £300,000 League One defender to literally the toast of Europe is utterly bewildering and barely comprehensible.
Comparisons With Legends
There are very few Rangers fans who would look at Fernandez and see a Gough or a Weir. And yet how Fernandez is being rated and perceived by the wider game, and indeed by the Scottish fraternity? That is every inch at the same level as those other legends.
Would we ever rate Fernandez at the level of David Weir or Carlos Cuellar? We would be hard pushed to do so. And yet his fellow professionals in the Scottish game have done exactly that.
The Weight Of Professional Opinion
And we must say, they probably know a bit more about what makes a footballer than the average football fan. We’d include ourselves in that at Ibrox Noise. It is hard to argue when top players say this is a top player, that this is one of them.
Then when you have EA Sports, a massive Rangers sponsor, also including the boy in their rest of Europe team, you start to realise there must be something there.
European Interest And Market Value
Of course, we know the stories of all the top European teams looking at him. Arsenal, West Ham and Borussia Dortmund, to name just three. There does seem to be an incredible machine around this boy that we can’t quite fathom because week on week, we are not seeing that level of performance.
Even the stats don’t strictly agree with it either. And yet there he is, right there in the PFA team, the rest of Europe team, and being scouted by some of Europe’s best teams. It is a very massive paradox, a huge and curious situation.
The £40M Question
Of course, ultimately, it is likely to net Rangers a lot of money. Barry Fry, of course, a master of the media, proposed a fee of around £40M. With the amount of hype around the boy, that is starting to look like it’s possible.
We can’t actually believe that we are saying £40M for a player in the Scottish Premiership. But the hype machine around Fernandez seems to suggest that he could actually go for that kind of number.
Rangers are certainly likely to break the club record in the event of a sale. Calvin Bassey will look like peanuts compared to this guy. And yet we don’t see the ability or quality that is being perceived within this hype machine.
So Emmanuel Fernandez hype machine is a curious situation, but nevertheless one that ultimately benefits Rangers.