Chelsea
Chelsea Managers
Jose Mourinho
By Gary Watton
October 27 2015
I hear a load of tripe about how we must cling on to Mourinho for the sake of 'stability' or 'continuity', or that we need the same supremo who can build a dynasty. Stability is way over-rated. We were 'stable' for four years under Claudio Ranieri and we won nothing. It all sounds wonderful and ideal, but football has changed drastically over the last fifteen years or so, and yes Chelsea have often been in the vanguard of the changes.
People scoffed at all our foreign imports. They were so indignant that they all went and did likewise. They got on their high horse when we kept looking abroad for a manager. Our competitors were so scornful of this new development that they all decided to follow our lead. Rival supporters mocked our sugar daddy foreign owner and were so besides themselves with contempt that they all seek tycoon foreigners now who will pump a small fortune into their clubs. More recently, a multitude of folk have been getting really snooty about the fact that Chelsea keep changing managers, some of whom were successful and deserving of more patience from the owner. However, even all the clubs have retreated from their original positions. I guess that imitation is a form of flattery.
Look at Aston Villa. They reached an FA Cup final in 2015 and in the same year they've ended up with three different managers. Sunderland similarly will have had three different managers in 2015 - a typical year for them! Liverpool once prided itself on not ditching managers mid-season. It wasn't very classy, the Kopites said. Well Woy Hodgson and Brendan Rodgers were both elbowed out mid-season. Anyone who thinks that 'the normal one', Herr Klopp, will be granted several years to bring success can dream on. Again, Louis Van Gaal will be shoved through the departure lounge if ManUre don't return to the Ferguson glory days pretty soon. As for Arsenil, every time that they lose, half of the supporters are calling for the guillotine to be applied to Monsieur Wenger. Long gone are the days when managers are given time to make progress. A manager has to hit the ground running and when some are granted a huge transfer pot, they must invest wisely, or their transfer dealings will be used as evidence of their incompetence.
Modern-day football is a mega-bucks enterprise. Football clubs that stand still on the football pitch or in the financial markets get overtaken. More and more clubs are attracting billionaires from overseas who are looking for a toy to play with and massage their inflated status. It must after all be quite a gas at cocktail parties to thrill the assembled guests with stories of your ownership of a football club. However, more seriously, with the revenue that is on offer from television deals and assorted sponsorship deals, football clubs that don't succeed on the field tend to get left behind off the field. Owners who never spent years on the terraces watching a club rise and fall like Chelsea has done for many decades care nothing for loyalty. They pay huge money to the playing staff and equally obscene amounts to the coaching staff. If the players don't deliver, they are shunted off. Few players are allowed several years to find their feet. The same now applies to managers too. Managers are not very patient with failing players any more, and they cannot expect their employers to be very patient with them either.
Take Chelsea. Mourinho recruited Kezman and Tiago. Neither was a huge success in 2004-5. Neither was a flop either. Kezman eventually scored several goals in the new year, from limited starts. Everyone was impressed with his attitude. However, he was gone at the end of the year. Tiago was a young man learning the ropes. He didn't boss matches but he did little wrong. He was gone at the end of the season too. There have been others. It's funny how those calling for the club to be patient with Mourinho forget that he hasn't always been patient.
Let's look at the myth of 'stability' or 'continuity'. Chelsea's second manager David Calderhead was in charge for 26 years and the team won diddly squat. ["Oh but they weren't a big club in them days". Sorry, but Chelsea were the best-supported team in London and sometimes the best-supported team in the land. "Yes, but we didn't have much money then." Wrong again. Calderhead splashed the cash in 1930 and bought about five star internationals (including Cheyne, Gallacher, Jackson, and Law) and his team still finished about twelfth the following season."] Then there was Leslie Knighton and Billy Birrell who each had many years to build a dynasty. Well, for all of the 'stability', we couldn't win a darts match against a blind man.
Fast forwarding to recent times, it is wrong to state that Abramovich is the bogeyman who wields his axe far too quickly. Gullit won the FA Cup (a prized possession back then) in 1997 and he was gone within a year. His departure didn't lead to disaster. Instead, Vialli kept the silverware coming. However, even he was shown the exit in 2000 a few months after a third FA Cup success for the club. Abramovich had nothing to do with these dismissals. Chelsea's impatience with managers precedes RA.
Finally, I recall the dismissal of Scolari. "Oh give him more time" (other supporters were yelling). More time to fail was what would have happened. Hiddink came along, steadied the ship, and took us to more FA Cup glory. Removing Scolari proved to be as successful as dismissing Gullit. Then there was dear old AVB. The world got cross with Chelsea for shoving him away. We brought in Di Matteo and more FA Cup success arrived soon after, topped off with the icing on the cake - European glory. RA then removed a struggling Di Matteo, and lo and behold Benitez supervised another European success story. Even Avram Grant did exceptionally well, inheriting a mess from Mourinho when the team were mid-table in September. With Grant, the team climbed the table, eventually overtook Arsenic and took the Premiership race to the last day of the season. Grant was also a penalty kick away from Champions League glory in his one attempt. Mourinho has not even got us into a final in five attempts (with massive funds at his disposal at various times) and he never will.
When we change managers mid-season, the roof doesn't cave in. Instead it's business as usual. Loyalty is no longer in evidence. It's all about winning and our history clearly shows that when we ditch a manager, the next one improves a struggling team. If Abramovich wants to elbow Mourinho out, so be it. C'est la vie.
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27/10/2015 12:49
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