Chelsea must make signing a right-back their January priority

There aren’t many teams in football who can say a full-back is their best player.

Thanks to Reece James, Chelsea are (probably) one of those teams.

The 23-year-old is widely accepted to be one of the finest right-backs on the planet already, with fans and rivals alike uniting to hail his talent and voice their disappointment to seeing him ruled out of the recent World Cup through injury.

Before James went down with his knee issue in October, Chelsea were flying. They’d bested AC Milan in emphatic fashion in the Champions League and had failed to win just two Premier League games for which he was fit and healthy.

After he was ruled out, Chelsea beat Aston Villa and then didn’t win any of their next five, tumbling into the free-fall that saw pressure mount on manager Graham Potter heading into the World Cup.

Potter will have been delighted to have James back for the Premier League return against Bournemouth, in which the right-back was crucial to a mesmeric Chelsea performance that yielded a well-deserved three points.

Unfortunately, he didn’t see it out as he aggravated his knee injury shortly after half-time. He was forced off and, unsurprisingly, Chelsea’s performance level dropped significantly. They were better than Bournemouth but lost their spark in attack and could have easily lost their lead on another day.

With James now out for another month, Chelsea cannot move forward without finding another similar player in the January transfer window. That has to be the undisputed priority.

As a star of the team, Chelsea rely on James. His dynamic energy at both ends of the field, coupled with his intelligent movement and elite eye for a cross, make the Blues tick. They are only at their best when James is playing.

In his place, Potter has to deploy wingers as wing-backs or, if playing a back four, turn to Cesar Azpilicueta. The Spaniard is a club legend and doesn’t deserve any criticism whatsoever, but at 33 years old, he can’t do what James does. Physically, he just can’t.

Azpilicueta doesn’t have the legs to get forward as much as James and instead prides himself on his defending, which would make him a star in any team apart from one that relies so heavily on the attacking output of its full-backs.

Without James, Chelsea’s entire system collapses. The triangles with Mason Mount and Kai Havertz disappear, and with them goes the Blues’ fluidity and spark. One look at Chelsea’s results without James will prove that they are an entirely different team when he’s not available.

You can point to the lack of a prolific striker, dynamic midfielder or reliable centre-back as flaws to Chelsea’s team, but the players have always found ways to paper over those cracks. Yes, they need addressing, but they’re manageable problems. What is not manageable, however, is losing James.

You won’t find somebody capable of replacing James perfectly, but what Chelsea need in January is to sign a player who can come close to replicating his role in the team.

90min reported in the summer that Celtic’s World Cup star Josip Juranovic had been watched, while Blues scouts have regularly taken in the performances of Inter’s Denzel Dumfries over the past 12 months, ramping up their interest in the Dutchman following the initial injury to James.

It is clear Chelsea are targeting an all-action full-back who wants to attack. The importance of such a player to the team’s system is clear and finding one should be the first job of the new transfer team.