Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 6:16 pm Post subject: Not so Special Chelsea!
Quote:
Only registered users can see links on this forum! Register or Login on forum!
Duncan Castles
Sunday September 23, 2007
The Observer
Jose Mourinho's relationship with John Terry has broken down completely over the Chelsea and England captain's central role in his departure from Stamford Bridge last week.
The Champions League-winning coach was replaced on Thursday by Avram Grant, a former Israel national team coach with no experience of club management outside his own country. According to many Chelsea sources, Grant will defer on football matters to owner Roman Abramovich, who has already started to take a hands-on role with the first team.
Mourinho holds Terry responsible for charges levelled by Chelsea's board of directors that he had lost the support of his playing staff after Tuesday's Champions League draw with Rosenborg - a match that was followed by club owner Roman Abramovich lecturing a senior professional on his on-field tactics behind Mourinho's back.
Half an hour before the Group B fixture, claims a dressing-room source, Terry told one of Mourinho's assistant coaches that he had 'things on my mind'. Only the intervention of a team-mate put him in the right state of mind to take part in the pre-match warm-up, for which Terry arrived late.
Midway through the first half Rosenborg scored, after Miika Koppinen beat Terry at a set piece. When Mourinho then directly criticised the centre back's defending at half time, Terry refused to accept responsibility for the goal or even to respond to his manager.
Earlier on Tuesday, Terry had been informed that Mourinho had gone to the club's medical department to ask whether there was any physical reason for the player's sub-standard performances in matches this season. Mourinho hoped to find an explanation for a significant decline in Terry's play following an operation to remove a disc from the defender's spine in December.
Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon was made aware of the dispute and, according to the dressing-room source, presented the information to an emergency board meeting on Wednesday as evidence that the manager had lost the trust of key players. The club subsequently asked Mourinho for his resignation, which he refused to tender, but ultimately settled on dismissal by 'mutual consent'. Later on Wednesday, Mourinho sent Terry a text message sarcastically thanking him for talking to the club's hierarchy.
On Friday, several first-team regulars apparently took their captain to task during a 50-minute team meeting called by Terry in the aftermath of Mourinho's dismissal. Ashley Cole, Didier Drogba and Florent Malouda are believed to have accused him of not doing enough to keep Mourinho at the club.
Terry is England's best-paid footballer after agreeing a five-year, £131,000-a-week contract this summer. In initial negotiations he had requested a 'limitless parity' clause to ensure he was the club's biggest earner for the duration of a proposed nine-year term. According to a Chelsea insider Terry also wanted - and was refused - a contractual option for him to manage the club at the end of his playing career.
As far-fetched as that request might be, Abramovich's actions in the aftermath of the Rosenborg draw were equally bizarre. In front of the entire Chelsea team, but while Mourinho was occupied with press conference duties, the Russian billionaire decided to hand out an impromptu tactics lesson to Michael Essien.
Employing striker Andriy Shevchenko as translator, he instructed midfielder Essien, player of the year last season, to hit passes wide rather than through central areas where the Norwegians had compressed play. Abramovich is expected to take an increasingly hands-on role in the team following the appointment of Grant to replace Mourinho and, according to several sources, will effectively select the side. In a press conference on Friday, Grant insisted he would not tolerate interference but declined to respond when asked who was the most important individual at Chelsea. 'Look, the owner gives the financial support,' Grant said. 'I'm not going to make remarks.'
The 52-year-old is already the subject of significant discontent among a first-team squad predominantly still loyal to Mourinho. Grant, though, is confident he will bring not only more silverware to Chelsea but a more attractive brand of football and said on Friday that he had no problems with the playing staff. 'There's a very good relationship with the players,' he said. 'I like their attitude, how they want to win all the time, even if the last result wasn't like that, but the relationship is good.'
Grant's first match comes at Old Trafford this afternoon, but he did not work yesterday for religious reasons. He must also wait for his Israeli coaching qualifications to be cleared by Uefa before he can be formally approved as a top-flight manager. Chelsea insist the process will be trouble-free.
Though Grant claimed that he had no 'plan to be the manager' until the appointment came about, he had begun requesting clearance from Uefa a fortnight ago.
According to Kenyon, the 'first-team coach' will be involved in all key areas of transfers and team building. He said: 'We are not embarking on the arbitrary buying of players and telling the coach to play them. Avram will be absolutely involved, responsible for picking the team and responsible for the results.'
Kenyon denied that Terry - who declined to comment last night - played any part in Mourinho's departure: 'There is absolutely nothing in stories that the dressing room has been lost. In particular there is no truth in any rumours that a bust-up with one or several of our players led to him leaving the club.'
It only a matter of time before Abramovich replaces Grant...as coach!
At the start of his term at Chelsea, Mourinho had said that if he operated in Roman's world of big finance Chelsea would be bankrupt, and if Abramovich started training the team, they'd be bottom of the league. I'd say that was a fair assessment. Too bad for Chelsea fans that Abramovich doesn't agree!
Joined: 29 Jul 2007 Posts: 354 Location: IN MY MIND
Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 9:03 pm Post subject:
I love it. after all whats better for a liverpudlian than to see chelsea go to the dogs?
F-OFF Blues, its the Era of THE REDS _________________ Joe B R
Joined: 29 Jul 2007 Posts: 354 Location: IN MY MIND
Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2007 3:25 am Post subject:
Laviathan wrote:
You can dip with 'em, Joe.
No lavly.
ill watch and enjoy those dirty Red Devils drowning in the very
"Clean" jheel. Then ill join my fellow KOPians for a Carlsberg lager.
thats liverpool's official sponsor by the way. _________________ Joe B R
can joe b r kindly control his language while talking on a public forum? otherwise it makes the exchange look rather uncouth. one can be sporting rivals with respect to teams. it's not like he PLAYS for liverpool! _________________ But the Snark WAS a Boojum you see!!
I am greatly disheartened by all the proceedings at chelsea. no way avram grant can handle top players the way mourinho could!! and roman abramovich's interference is just shocking! i thought rumours of terry playing a part in mourinho's dismissal were fabricated and it wasn't true? terry threatened to take pressmen to court for accusing him didn't he??
it's awful awful how ppl can just let such a brilliant club go to waste like this. _________________ But the Snark WAS a Boojum you see!!
Joined: 29 Jul 2007 Posts: 354 Location: IN MY MIND
Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 1:43 am Post subject:
Captain Spark wrote:
can joe b r kindly control his language while talking on a public forum? otherwise it makes the exchange look rather uncouth. one can be sporting rivals with respect to teams. it's not like he PLAYS for liverpool!
where is the language indecent eh?
and as for me not playing for liverpool, every liverpudlian at heart is a part of the great KOP which i am a proud member of, so i can respect rivals especially chelsea but only to a certain extent. No Blues non-sense gonna work with this Red here Sparky Di.
* I have double checked language, unless you want me to speak like the queen, i think ive done fine here * _________________ Joe B R
I am greatly disheartened by all the proceedings at chelsea. no way avram grant can handle top players the way mourinho could!! and roman abramovich's interference is just shocking! i thought rumours of terry playing a part in mourinho's dismissal were fabricated and it wasn't true? terry threatened to take pressmen to court for accusing him didn't he??
it's awful awful how ppl can just let such a brilliant club go to waste like this.
I really doubt The Guardian would publish rubbish about football in general. I've been following football stories every single day or the week for the past 5 years so I can safely say that if The Guardian has the story you can be 90% sure its true. I didn't believe the Vieira transfer story when it happened because it was all too casual, but I believed it when it broke on The Guardian.
Anyway, the thing is that Chelsea have done everything in their power to topple the dominance of ManUtd., Arsenal and Liverpool. They did a good job admittedly. However, their targets are obviously short-term. Buying players worth 30m a season doesn't deliver success. No matter how much money Abramovich pumps into Chelsea he will never create tradition.
Do you remember the reign of the Tinkerman at Stamford Bridge? I actually still respected Chelsea while Claudio Ranieiri was manager. He was doing a great job there until he was unceremoniously dethroned by a certain Russian. Ranieiri clearly stated that he was not in charge of the incoming transfers at the club. Players like Veron and Mutu showed up one fine morning on the training pitch. The management tells Ranieiri...you have new players...enjoy! It such a shame. Ranieiri, technically, could have actually delivered results while playing entertaining football. His purchases were generally sound...and even Mourinho publicly thanked him for buying players like Robben. That demonstrated foresight and continuity, unlike Mourinho's reign.
The weird thing is that Abramovich has probably damaged Chelsea's chances of becoming a club everyone admires and respects. If you spend an hour surfing through public football forums you will find the number of Chelsea supporters next to nothing. In fact I'd say Chelsea is possibly one of the most hated clubs in world football at the moment. Not because they are successful and the others are jealous....but because they have used artificial means to achieve their goals. Its not only the money but underhanded tactics aimed at tapping up good players...not just from their immediate rivals but from the entire league as a whole. ManUtd have been doing this for a while now(Rooney, Ferdinand, Saha, Van Der Sar), and Chelsea joined them (Joe Cole, Ashley Cole, Lampard, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Ben Haim, Duff). As a result, the top four steam-rolled all the other clubs in the league. Look at the stats...one or two defeats meant 2-3rd place a couple of years ago. It is only now that the league has shown signs of recovery. Bizzarely, Chelsea now they think they have the right to break into the G-14.
Joined: 29 Jul 2007 Posts: 354 Location: IN MY MIND
Posted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 3:07 am Post subject:
well said Sandy.
it is absolutely true. its something real madrid also tried to do, once they had bought Gravesen, they had the perfect team. they should have played with it, but they kept on buying players. robinho in my opinion was the worst signing real made and that resulted in 3-4 years of wilderness.
chelsea tries the same thing, but yo have to be a football literate to know that money can buy short term success, not long term solidarity. Abramovich obviously isn't football literate and his decisions clearly show that. _________________ Joe B R
True that about The Guardian. It is where I prefer to read my football news. Sandy, the reason people hate Chelsea (ok, one of the reasons) is that their PR absolutely sucks. It all began with a billionaire with a healthy interest in football flying all over Europe to watch games. People seemed to accept that happily enough. Now it's all gone sour. The image is of this powerful contolfreak nobody can really work for. Players have lost the plot - remember Cashley? Or Fat Frank and his whining about not getting love? You need to be a superclub like Liverpool or Man Utd to get away with boring football- you've already got really the loyal global fanbase. Chelsea doesn't. There's nothing that inspires that kind of loyalty. And what about John Terry rolling down the window of his Bentley and asking that woman, "So how about showing me some thong?" Real class eh? _________________ Step over.
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
