I read that they've spent £65m over the past 5 years just on sacking managers.

Think boas may end up at inter

What is Inter? Reincarnation for sacked Chelsea bosses?

Wonder if Tottenham would take him if Redknapp goes?

I'd take AVB with someone like keown or bould as his assistant.

Lampard has played for 7 different Chelsea managers, 5 England managers, 1 manager at West Ham

And now another manager in Di Matteo.

Tim TJ Mackey wrote:

Is the full stop in the thread title annoying anyone else?

Yes. Every time my eyes pass over it is like a cat o' nine tails in the linguistic cortex.

General Mirth wrote:

In the long term, Chelsea will continue to struggle but for the next 11 games I think they'll get their shit together and make things happen. Disgraceful that the players practically forced him out of the club.

Exactly what has happened. Exactly what was predicted - that player power would be too much for a younger manager like Villas-Boas. The other disgrace is that Abramovich either can't see it (unlikely) or doesn't have the guts to face it.

Really, the surprise is how long it took.

Guardiola and Mourinho are being touted as replacements.

If either of them get the position i'll be fuming.

Out of the two I prefer Mourinho to go as we then have a chance of getting Guardiola.

You have to wonder about the thought process for a manager considering the Chelsea role.
"If I go there and win the Champions League, I'll be the most loved manager in football history. And if don't, I'll walk away with 2 or 3 years pay without damage to my reputation. I'll be abused, but rich."

Clrnc wrote:

flobaba wrote:

What has poor Pat ever done to you?

Isn't he retiring this season?

He might be. I can't recall. But even so, i would think AVB is too high profile a coach to come here as a number 2 man.

Abramovich has fucked up badly here, again.

AVB was not a good appointment as was said at the time, but he's just sacked his manager on behalf of a recalcitrant group of players who aren't good enough to win the Champions League or the league.

Seemed inevitable. AVB made quite a few mistakes, but the guy never really stood a chance of being a success with Chelsea because of the sheer scale of the task at hand.

Chelsea are going to find it very difficult to rebuild their team. IMO it will take them a few seasons to start challenging again and even that's not a given especially if there is no continuity with managers. Abramovich allegedly pushed hard for the FFP rulings, but the timing may come back to haunt him if his Chelsea team don't regain their gusto within the next 2-3 seasons, which is when they are fully enacted. A needed overhaul of players and searching for a new manager is a terrible position to be in at this stage.

I have not watched a lot of Chelsea this season.. but a few of my chelsea friends say some of the players played as if they wanted AVB to be sacked. I don't know how true it is, but if it is, it is very sad.

It's almost an open secret that you have to massage the egos of the bigger players to win the dressing room over but given that they're all over 30 and under performing, it's hard to fully justify their huge contracts and a starting position. There's an interview with Wenger where he said:

I was just convinced of what I wanted and I was fortunate to face intelligent players: I had Steve Bould, Tony Adams, Nigel Winterburn, Lee Dixon, Martin Keown – they are all intelligent people. And they thought: 'Maybe this guy is completely mad but we will try and it can work – you never know.'"

Sometimes we take things for granted, replace Adams with a character like John Terry and things could have ended very differently for this club. People like Terry, Lampard and Cole may have done a lot for Chelsea as footballers but you wonder if they really give a shit about that clubs best interest in the future.

AVB has only been at the club since June last year and barely brought it new players, how much can you blame him for the state Chelsea are in now and the fact that previously good players are not playing to their full ability. The manager can only do so much in such a short space of time, if two or three big players decided to cause a ruckus, then he doesn't have a chance because it;s easier to sack the manager than the players.

Two of those players are miserable scumbags. But I do think the narrative of player power is overplayed when newspapers report about Chelsea. The players don't have significant levels of power. All that's happened is that the owner has an irrational obsession with winning the Champions League. Whenever there is a failure, he gets rid of the person who is in charge of footballing affairs, and a new one comes in. The players don't have power, they've just been around the longest and they aren't the ones Abramovich deems responsible for failure.

Many managers would disagree. While they perhaps have less power than is often implied, players have plenty; they, afterall, have the tightest grip on results of anybody.

Claudius wrote:

Two of those players are miserable scumbags. But I do think the narrative of player power is overplayed when newspapers report about Chelsea. The players don't have significant levels of power. All that's happened is that the owner has an irrational obsession with winning the Champions League. Whenever there is a failure, he gets rid of the person who is in charge of footballing affairs, and a new one comes in. The players don't have power, they've just been around the longest and they aren't the ones Abramovich deems responsible for failure.

I don't think it is.
How many managers have come and gone in the past eight years at Chelsea?
How many of that core group of players have been moved on?
Who's secure in the knowledge that they are safe from the consequences of poor results?

Did you see what Pardew said in his presser on the weekend? Basically that he had the same situation with senior players when he went to West Ham and since then several of them have apologised to him personally for making his managerial reign difficult.