This is hardly a night of the long knives. Faced with the obvious need to escort Terry to the city limits and say thank you very much (or thank you for the good bits), Abramovich continues to allow a situation where managers run on to a minefield with the first-team squad through the team's refusal/inability to adapt to new tactical requirements.
One minute Chelsea are defending too high up the pitch and attacking too much. The next they are failing to pass the ball out of defence well enough. Then there is an imbalance in midfield, or the striker is holding the team back. In the Cobham culture, there is always someone else to blame: always the manager, because nobody is brave enough to attack Abramovich, who missed his chance to be rid of Terry when he was found by the Football Association to have racially abused Anton Ferdinand.
Chelsea's subsequent Champions League victory under Roberto Di Matteo in Munich was both an epic achievement and perhaps the most unhealthy European Cup win in history, because it gave the more difficult players something to throw in the face of any manager who dared take them on. And no coach was ever going to be in a weaker position to do so than Benítez, with his authority-sapping 'interim' tag.
So now we see a stopgap manager risking instant dismissal for his outburst at Middlesbrough but hanging on in an even weaker state for tomorrow's visit by West Bromwich Albion. A caretaker is at risk of being replaced by a nightwatchman. There is nowhere to go down the road of transitory arrangements after that.
Some will call it revisionist to suggest Villas-Boas was the answer all along. But his abilities are not the issue. The point is that Villas-Boas was asked to do a job by Abramovich and was doing it. When results went wonky the owner could have taken a stand. He could have told the awkward squad that Villas-Boas was staying wherever Chelsea finished in the table and that they might as well get used to it or leave.
Instead he backed the players – yet again – ahead of the manager.
Megalomania is not Abramovich's defining weakness. He misdirects his power.
United need Barca to burst Real bubble
There is no disguising the jolt to Barcelona's aura from the 2-0 Champions League first-leg defeat
in Milan and this week's heavy defeat by Real Madrid in the Copa del Rey. A bad case of complacency seems to have plunged the world's best club side into a vortex they may now struggle to control.
But the point about great teams is that the players can arrest a slide without help from the dugout, which in this case is occupied by the caretaker Jordi Roura.
Xavi, Andrés Iniesta and Carles Puyol ought to have some answers before Barça face Real again tomorrow in the second El Clásico inside five days.
An unfortunate side effect for Manchester United is that Jose Mourinho's men may now arrive at Old Trafford on Tuesday bursting with confidence.
United need Barcelona to give a probably weakened Real side a whipping to lower the hopes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Co.
At the halfway mark a hellish schedule for Real Madrid is turning out to be quite useful. United, who face Norwich City, will not want to face a Real team celebrating a collapse in Barcelona's form.
Either way Old Trafford seems guaranteed to see the best of Ronaldo, who has jumped on his chance to outshine Lionel Messi.
Cheltenham torture is worth the pain
A visit to the Cotswolds on Thursday put the smell of the Cheltenham Festival in the nostrils. The lure of jump racing's greatest meeting (March 12-15) is already torturing and exciting those with hopes of coming away with a prize.
The torture comes from the sense that a Cheltenham win is both attainable but also incredibly hard to achieve because every race is a championship.
Edward Gillespie, the mastermind behind Cheltenham's growth before leaving last year, pointed out that 500 horses travel to the Festival each year but only 27 win. The other 473 do not know they are going to lose, which is the beauty. If only we knew the names of the 27.
No comments:
Post a Comment