This morning Chelsea dismissed their manager, Andre Villas-Boas, a mere 9 months after his appointment.
It's fair to say Chelsea have not had the best of seasons. Perhaps the most striking thing about their defeat against West Brom on Saturday was the lack of shock waves it sent through the league. Under (and let's face it we simply have to mention his name) Jose Mourinho, a defeat for Chelsea was so rare that it always came as a surprise, particularly against a relative minnow like Roy Hodgson's West Brom. Indeed, the Baggies have never so much as taken a point from Chelsea in the Premier League, until their comfortably superior victory this weekend. This season, the Blues have suffered 7 defeats in their first 27 league games, and are currently on a run of only 3 wins in their past 10 games. Not good enough.
The defeat that seemingly prompted this move in actual fact leaves Chelsea far from the oblivion which one might assume. They sit in 5th place, three points back from a resurgent Arsenal. The Gunners are flying after a tremendous week which has given their Champions League hopes for 2012/13 a massive boost (RVP surely HAS to be player of the year) but all is far from lost for Chelsea. Of course, Champions League qualification is seen as the minimum benchmark at the start of every season, but it is not out of reach. Compare the 'crisis' at Chelsea with the lack of fuss up at Liverpool who, although with one trophy in the bank, arguably sit in a far worse position, 7 points away from Chelsea and languishing in 7th. The Londoners still have every chance to finish inside the top four and pending a tricky cup replay, could yet claim the FA Cup and (even trickier) progress further in Europe.
Whatever the objective view however, there is really only one opinion that matters at the West London club and that belongs to Roman Abramovich. Only too happy to ship out anyone he deems to be failing to meet his standards, Roman has issued seven P45's in his 9 year tenure as owner and emperor of the club.
Upon appointing Villas-Boas, it seemed that Abramovich and the Chelsea hierarchy were going for an altogether longer term approach, going for youth and looking further ahead than March. It was a bold appointment, one which came at great cost, and I was one of many at the time who thought it was a smart move by Chelsea to emulate the type of dynastic success enjoyed by Arsenal and, of course, United. The key factor that seems to have played against AVB however is largely due to his age and relative inexperience. The key word being 'relative'...
Relative to some of the key figures in the Stamford Bridge dressing room, the 33-year old manager who never played at the highest level and has one (hyper-successful) full season in charge of a top flight football club knows nothing and has done nothing. They are the same age as him and seem to have sufficient ego to believe they don't need to listen to anyone and they know best. As if you don't know, I'm referring to the likes of Frank Lampard, John Terry and Didier Drogba, who are all presumably feeling pretty smug with themselves today having effectively orchestrated their manager's demise by failing to stick by him with their press conferences and comments to the media.
It's a display of arrogance and petulance which is entirely unsurprising given the people involved, but what rankles most for me is that these are not Messi, Iniesta and Xavi we are talking about. Chelsea's power players are all past their prime, and are no longer able to steamroll the league like they did back in the mid-noughties.
Ever since Jose Mourinho's patience ran out in 2007, he has cast an almighty shadow over Chelsea Football Club. The bookies think he is heading back, and it certainly seems that he will be departing Real Madrid in the Summer, most likely with the La Liga title.
The great irony of this situation could well be that if Mourinho does return to Chelsea, those players who have pined for him all this time and seem only to respect his view; those same players might well find themselves slung out. Mourinho has never had a problem exerting his influence and making decisions for the good of the team - and he may well feel that JT is too slow, Super Frank does not have the same influence on a game anymore, Didier can't boss defences like he used to. It would be fascinating to see quite how they'd react to being dropped by Jose.
As I say he is now the bookies favourite to return and I would imagine if that was the case many Chelsea supporters would be delighted. Carlo Ancelotti was successful in his tenure there and was harshly dismissed; Avram Grant came within the width of a post of delivering the club's first European Cup...but the reality is that every manager since Jose has been compared unfavourably to the Special One. He may well return and deal with the unfinished business, but you feel things would have to change in terms of the influence afforded the manager. With Jose it's all or nothing, and it may be time for Abramovich to relent and hand full control over to his prodigal son - whether Jose is so keen is currently unknown.
As for AVB, his future also remains unclear. This has been a harsh lesson for the young coach, but there is no reason to dismiss him as a naive fool or a clueless no-hoper. To be honest, I feel sorry for him - with a different set of players he may have been better able to perform the necessary rejig without being undermined constantly. Ryan Giggs never moans to the press about Ferguson dropping him - he appreciates and understands that as he ages his role in the squad changes; unfortunately for Villas-Boas the Chelsea old guard seem less willing to embrace this fact.
I expect he will take another role, most likely on the continent (I'd think he's had enough of the English press for a little while) and I hope that he can go on to redeem and rebuild his reputation. He clearly has talent as a coach, one does not simply walk into Mordor just as one does not simply lead a team through a league season undefeated, and I will enjoy the day he comes back to haunt Chelsea.
Finally, this leaves a number of questions for Chelsea as a team, can they salvage their season (which lest we forget is in the state it's in thanks to their own ineptitude) or will they be facing up to the cold harsh reality next year of the dreaded Thursday Night, Channel Five? We shall see.
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