Roman empire left Blues a club with spirit but no soul
In trying to rationalise or even defend the irrational and indefensible sacking of Roberto Di Matteo, various former pros and commentators have claimed that only for Abramovich, Chelsea would have had nothing like the success they’ve had these past eight years.
Paul Elliott felt Di Matteo’s dismissal and that of five other coaches these past five years has been “justified” because results and performances hadn’t “been to the level of a club of this magnitude” and “Abramovich has always been good for Chelsea”.
Even our favourite writer about football these days, Ken Early, in these pages saw a method in Roman’s emperor-style madness, arguing that only for the Russian, Chelsea fans would “be booing some less-distinguished manager and a team of ordinary players in a half-empty ground”.
Really? Abramovich bought a club that had just finished fourth in the Premier League, its seventh consecutive year finishing in the top six.
It had qualified for the Champions League. Stamford Bridge was almost always full, never half-empty. Even Abramovich admitted at the time that he had acquired “already one of the top clubs in Europe”. While Chelsea weren’t getting just any kind of owner, that owner wasn’t getting just any kind of club.
The advent of Mourinho, not Abramovich, was the real game-changer. The Special One would have won with Ken Bates’ millions too. The overlooked reality is that while the arrival of Abramovich and all his “f*** off” money was a certain watershed for English football, it was actually less of a quantum leap for Chelsea itself, certainly compared to the one it undertook around the summer of 1996.
You’ll recall those innocent days when football was coming home. Glenn Hoddle was lined up to replace El Tel Venables as England manager on the back of guiding Chelsea to an FA Cup semi-final and the lofty heights of 11th in the Premiership.
A year later Chelsea would win the FA Cup, thanks to the summer signings of ‘96. Only days after lifting the European Cup, Gianluca Vialli quit Juventus for the Bridge. Instead of David Lee partnering Michael Duberry at centre-half, Frank Leboeuf would. Instead of Craig Burley being the side’s main midfield creative force, a certain Italian called Roberto Di Matteo was, while another, Gianfranco Zola, played up front instead of John Spencer.
Vialli was only a sub. That’s how far Chelsea came that season. Instead of Paul Furlong, they now had a Champions League-winning captain for a benchwarmer.
The following year they would win both the European Cup Winners Cup and domestically the League Cup.
In 1999 they had a decent shot off winning the league, losing only three games all season, just like eventual treble-winners Manchester United. In 2000 they again won the FA Cup, became the first British club to field an entire non-British team and were within eight minutes of beating Barcelona and reaching the Champions League semi-final.
What Abramovich did was sustain and elevate that level of success and extravagance as well as a certain insanity and instability. Both before and after the injection of Matthew Harding’s cash, Bates would spit out managers at an alarming degree.
The firing of Di Matteo though represents a breaking point whatever about a new low for neutrals, which is why so many took a certain perverse delight in seeing Rafa Benitez cut such an exasperated figure last week.
In dismissing and replacing Di Matteo so promptly, both the club’s current owner and manager clearly felt Chelsea could still win this year’s league. There can be no other rationale for firing the Italian and hiring the Spaniard. The irrationality of that is already clear. Already Rafa can’t win the league.
Some commentators say Di Matteo deserves as much credit for the Champions League success as Benitez would were he to win this month’s World Championship because neither constructed their team. Balderdash; the best coaching is been giving a hand — someone else’s — and winning — big and often — with it. Di Matteo inherited a mess; the appointment of Benitez created one.
Di Matteo might never have been a long-term manager for Chelsea but he proved to be the ideal man for those few months and deserved to see out the full season, not just his November blip, the kind all managers have endured.
Abramovich wouldn’t have tolerated Alex Ferguson’s bumpy periods — which is why a coach of Fergie’s stature would now hardly tolerate an Abramovich. We’d be amazed if Pep Guardiola was to forsake New York for that poisoned chalice this summer.
Another great coach and lover of the Big Apple, Phil Jackson, would often reflect on the words of Carlos Castenada: “Look at every path closely and deliberately... Then ask yourself the question: Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good. If it doesn’t, it is of no use.”
Any squad which has Terry, Lampard and Cech clearly has spirit. But recent events have shown Roman’s circus and club has no soul, no heart, and for that reason can be no Barca and of no use to Pep.
