Rodgers a reminder of Chelsea failings

Liverpool boss’s vision in stark contrast to short-term thinking of his former employers.

Chelsea’s failure to nurture coaching talent, not to mention owner Roman Abramovich’s obsession with sacking managers, could once again haunt Stamford Bridge tomorrow as Liverpool visit for a match that has real meaning in the title race.

Nobody will dare say that Jose Mourinho is not the right man to lead the Blues into action in such a crucial fixture; he is after all the most successful club manager in the game now Alex Ferguson has retired — and a man who has achieved so much in west London before. But the sight of Brendan Rodgers in the Liverpool dug-out should nevertheless spark an emotional response for those who have a view on how the future of Chelsea should look.

The truth is the way Rodgers has progressed at Anfield has surprised very few people; even in the days when he was invited by Mourinho to take over the youth academy at Stamford Bridge in 2004 there were whispers around west London about his potential as a coach and as a man manager.

He looked, by all accounts, a natural.

Here was a young and hungry man whose playing career had ended early at the age of 20 and who clearly put every ounce of energy and emotion in his body into coaching instead.

Even at that stage he had natural leadership qualities, a certain stature in the way he went about his business, and a willingness to take on new ideas; and within two years he was managing the reserve team (under both Avram Grant and Luiz Felipe Scolari) and tipped as a future Chelsea manager.

If only Chelsea were a normal club he would probably be sitting in that exact job right now — there have certainly been enough vacancies over the years.

But, of course, Chelsea are not a normal club, and so Rodgers will find himself in the away dugout not the home one tomorrow.

Chelsea fans, blinded by loyalty to Mourinho, will almost certainly say, ‘so what?’

But perhaps some of the traumas of the last few years could have been avoided and perhaps the club would have a more assured future if the board had nurtured Rodgers in the way Liverpool nurtured members of its Anfield boot room in years gone by.

Rodgers is not the only one who has been ‘lost’ by Chelsea, either.

Paul Clement, who learned his trade with the U16s at Stamford Bridge and later worked under Guus Hiddink and Carlo Ancelotti, is currently assistant at Real Madrid and one of the most coveted coaches in world football — while Steve Clarke, a legend as both player and then assistant manager to Mourinho in the club’s glory days, was allowed to join West Ham after seeing both the Special One and Avram Grant sacked in quick succession.

No wonder Rodgers, when linked with the Chelsea job in his Swansea days following Andre Villas-Boas’ sacking in 2012, spotted that it wasn’t the right time to put his name in the hat.

“I am trying to build my career and not destroy it,” he famously said.

“There is so much going for Chelsea — it’s a terrific club. But you can’t continue doing what they do and have success. It does not work. The next manager who goes in there will have the sameproblems and issues.”

The appointment of Mourinho is currently papering over those cracks; Chelsea, through sheer organisation and mental strength, are hanging on in the title race and giving the impression they have several more gears to go. You could even go as far as to say it would be no major surprise if they bought a striker in January, stepped on the gas and finished on top of the Premier League by May.

But what isn’t clear is whether the club has a clear, sustainable and long-term vision for the future that can survive all the traumas that will almost certainly punctuate the next decade.

Rodgers, meanwhile, seems like a man who is looking long beyond 2014 as he develops a new style, a new mentality and a new future at Anfield.

“When I arrived here I knew my job was to develop the style of football while moving the club forward, and that’s what we’ve tried to do,” he said. “The team has been evolving all the time. You have to go through a period of transition when you put your principles forward; but we are getting there. If you look at the last number of weeks, the performance level and the standard has been at a real high level, including at Man City.

“I think we’re a team that shows great confidence and belief in how we’re training and how we’re working. We’re taking that confidence into any stadium, home and away, and that’s always difficult for an opponent.

“At this moment in time, we’re just focusing on our next game and that’s all we’ve done throughout the course of this calendar year. But ultimately, we want to set up camp in the top four and then we’ll try and retain that position over the next couple of years in there.

“It will give us a chance to improve the team and the squad.”

For all Mourinho’s qualities — and they are proven and multiple — we still haven’t had that kind of clarity of vision from him since he returned to Stamford Bridge.

Where does he want Chelsea to be? What exactly is Chelsea’s new style?

How will he strengthen the set-up ready for the day when he eventually moves on? All these areunanswered and unclear— and that’s a concernbecause even with theSpecial One in charge Chelsea need more than a day-to-day map of where they want to go if they are to revitalise their titlechallenge.

Tomorrow’s match will either underline that point or dilute it; but seeing Rodgers masterminding Liverpool’s revival may prove to be an uncomfortable experience no matter what the result.