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.
