A newbie to dexy’s ranks, I thought I’d come in with a bang – well sort of. This season’s been one of the strangest in recent memory. Gone are the stoic battles between two or maybe three formidable outfits – we now have about 6 teams in the top rung of our league, all of which could realistically challenge for top spot over the next decade. There also seems to be a strange shift in how our game is being run, administered, played and presented to us. Maybe it started with Sky, in what seems a bygone age when Shearer had hair. Player’s wages and egos grew from this point, but we got a real sense of things to come in June 2003, when Roman Abramovich took over Chelsea Football Club.
I’ll add in here that I’m a Chelsea fan. Not really sure how this came about – my granddad had a season ticket at Stamford Bridge back in the day, but my dad (his son) turned out to become a Utd fan. In the absence of being born in the vicinity of a top-flight club, we usually follow our old man’s footsteps. Whilst I didn’t follow suit, what cannot be argued is that when this club, for whatever reason is chosen, it can’t be altered. You grow up with the club, learn their history, revel in victory and despair in defeat.
I was happy in my Vialli no.9 Autoglass shirt, two sizes too big for me. I thought we were happy with our a bit higher than mid table mediocrity, a little stab at European glory with our 1998 Cup Winners Cup win. Fast forward a few years and we’re winning the league with a record 95 points. All eyes were on us and Jose, the Premier League’s most exciting and controversial addition – We’ve not realised how much we miss him. Why do you think we all latched on to Ian Holloway since? Football needs a slice of personality in a time when business and money is more important than history and the beautiful game itself.
This came to an abrupt end in September 2007 when Jose, our most successful manager in history bringing back to back league titles after a 50 year drought, was ousted – in what now seems a fairly regular occurrence. This is where things began to unravel. People always said that Abramovich would get bored of his new toy, he’d up sticks and pull his money right from underneath West London, and toddle off back to Russia. I fear that he offers even greater threat to our club in the coming years though. I’ll note now that I’m not in any way suggesting he should’ve never arrived in England in the first place. We’ve enjoyed a fantastic few years all thanks to his personal wealth, and he’s given Chelsea football club a status we otherwise don’t really deserve. We’ve not the history of the likes of Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal. Not even Everton or Villa. But we do have a history, our history (winning a European Cup Winners Cup in 1971 before there were any European trophies on Merseyside that I feel Roman understands nothing of.
This relentless pursuit of the Champions League and the current business model of the requirement of immediate results, not to mention the desire for risky marquee signings with obscene price tags adds up to bad news for the club. I guess it technically began with the sacking of Ranieri, but then came the shocking mistake of getting rid of Jose Mournihio. Since then we’ve had and gotten rid of Grant, Scolari, Hiddink and Ancelotti, and two other crucial assets – Steve Clarke and Ray Wilkins. The names of Shevchenko and Torres complete a series of mistake after mistake by Roman and the Chelsea board, and highlight their ineptitude at running a football club.
I can’t understand why the board with Roman at the helm fail to grasp the simplest of things. Like sacking the assistant manager after an incredible start to the season, who was an integral translation link between manager and players, not to mention a respected character from the club’s past. How about spending £50 million on a marquee superstar in a frantic final day of the January transfer window, when said marquee star looked in a torrid run of form which had stemmed from before the previous world cup. Clearly lessons from Shevchenko had been blindly ignored. So what instead? A winger would be nice – Malouda doesn’t provide enough width, and Ashley Cole is a defender who lacks any form of a decent contribution in the final third. A creative midfielder maybe, in the mould of Sneijder? Someone we can think of moulding the team around to start the process of phasing out Super Frank. Start the young un’s, and if not a load of them regularly, at least McEachren, he looks comfortable enough to start upping his responsibilities. There, three things that I guarantee most football fans can clearly see, but some out of touch businessmen clearly can’t.
Before I risk accusation of having done next to no research, I’ve no idea of the financial implications tied with Abramovich upping and leaving, before you comment. But as a business model, the club doesn’t look particularly stable. You only have to begrudgingly look to the North of London to Arsenal, who from shrewd planning and investment, look stable with their new stadium and low relatively low wage bills / player spends. No, there’s no trophy to show for 6 years, but does anybody really think that Arsenal won’t be there or thereabout in 3, 5 or 10 years time? They’ll always be close, and it’ll come at some point. The future looks a bit bleaker for the Chelsea. I can only see a future of poor decisions; wasted money and endless p45’s and compensation pay offs with Roman as the owner. It’s been good, and all, but it’s time to go.
