Cole substitution prompts plebs revolt

THE weekend saw a turning point for the Chelsea support. They finally made public their views on Grant.

It seems that you can be complicit in the departure of the club’s most successful manager, you can continue to play dull and naive football, you can be the owner’s patsy without too much public castigation — but woe betide you if you decide to substitute crowd favourite Joe Cole — even if he is having another stinker. The only shame was that Abramovich wasn’t there to watch us plebs revolting.

I wasn’t one of those shouting “you don’t know what you’re doing.” Although I don’t think he does, it seemed ridiculous to chant it at a time when he had actually got something right. I also did not join in the songs for Mourinho as this is simply pointless. If the chant had been “we want a qualified manager”, I’d have participated wholeheartedly.

What was amusing was Grant’s explanation — apparently the crowd were over excited at the great football we were playing. Yeah, righto — keep taking the tablets.

Many theories have been aired on why Grant was hired. An interesting one is that despite the four-year contract, Grant was put in place because a “suitable” replacement for Mourinho was not available (although both Capello and Lippi were twiddling their thumbs at the time). No “proper” manager would take the reigns temporarily so Grant slips into the breach — the “contract” is a reward for acting as patsy. Not only does Grant act as stop-gap until the chosen candidate is available, but he also bears the brunt of the fans anger. He is then replaced and the fans are so pleased at finally having a “proper” manager that José is forgotten.

Machiavellian though it is, I am hoping that Roman has actually played us in this way. If we are honest the situation between Mourinho and Abramovich could not have continued — not when you have an owner as hands-on as ours. Capello and Lippi are not known for their expansive styles and so Roman has been holding out for who? Rijkaard? Hiddink?

So to the FA Cup this weekend. If you know any QPR fans they will have no doubt told you about the time they beat us 6-0 — probably at least a half a dozen times a week. Every QPR fan also claims to have been there on that momentous occasion.

This wasn’t 5 years ago, 10 years ago or even 15 years ago — this was 21 years ago and they still harp on about it.

It’s pretty sad but, I suppose, understandable as the only thing of note they have won in their history is the league cup — and that was 40 years ago in the days of Rodney Marsh, the poor man’s Peter Osgood.

Since bagging three billionaires they have all come out of hiding. Each one is tripping over themselves to tell you how they will be topping the Premier League within three years.

One has to stop and think as to why three very rich men have bought into a nothing little club like QPR. I’m sure it has nothing at all to do with the fact that their ground is prime West London development land.

I may be wrong — after all they are already splashing the cash on “stars” to join QPR — Fitz Hall from Wigan is virtually a done deal.

Either way I demand that we score at least 7 goals this Saturday — although who exactly is going to score these goals I don’t know.

This may not be an issue for much longer as Anelka and Mexican wonderkid Dos Santos could be firmly instilled at Stamford Bridge within the next couple of weeks or so — hopefully sooner to negate the effects of losing our African stars.

We need players back from injury and we need to start playing well if we are going to mount any sort of challenge — and that means Grant and the management committee need to come up with some tactics that do not leave the players looking dazed and confused.

So I am off to Fulham after filing this, scene of one of the worst performances of the Mourinho regime, a 1-0 defeat. Grant and co will do better, and in an attractive and attacking way. Won’t they?

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