Nothing a-brewin’ at Chelsea with Cristiano Ronaldo — report

Bit of tabloid speculation has brought Manchester United malcontent Cristiano Ronaldo back into the Chelsea headlines, despite his banishment from the limelight and the first-team by Sunday’s visitors at Stamford Bridge.

Former ESPN scribe Kevin Palmer, now “content writer” for the Sunday World teased the “huge” story after last night’s game, which of course turned out to be nothing more than idle speculation of coulds and maybes, presumably thrown his way by superagent Jorge Mendes.

Still, it’s fertile ground for speculation, especially with Chelsea yet to appoint an actual sporting or technical director, which probably means that Todd Boehly continues to call all the shots. And he’s reportedly a huge fan of the veteran superstar — probably more for his marketing appeal than for his football, one would think — and needed repeated convincing from Thomas Tuchel this summer to not scupper the team by signing the 37-year-old.

But as CBS’s Ben Jacobs reports, the ground thankfully remains rather fallow even with Tuchel gone. Graham Potter, who’s supposed to have similar influece, doesn’t have Cristiano Ronaldo at the top of his list (instead has a much better list in Rafael Leão, Jonathan David, and Ivan Toney), while the biggest priority at the club is to address the midfield first and foremost.

Good.