How much is this going to cost Chelsea now?

So its 24mil to sack Ancelotti. 14 million to hire AVB... how much more are they going to waste!

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

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.

I didn't see that but part of me commends them for making Pardew's reign difficult.

I feel for avb. He was ageing rapidly so it's probably a good thing for him

Y Va, I'd suggest that managers come and go because Roman credits them with success and failure. For him, they are responsible for bringing glory. Not the players.

As for the players, they stay because none of the managers stay. When you are a Chelsea manager, you know that the expected length of your reign is 12 months. Would you start buying and selling players if that was your expected tenure? Or would you add finishing touches to the experienced and talented core you already have?

The problem is not the players. The problem is 100% Roman's impatience.

y va marquer wrote:

I didn't see that but part of me commends them for making Pardew's reign difficult.

😆

Point was that players always have it in their ability to get the manager sacked. Exactly why they would want to do that is a separate issue.

I think Abramovich's impatience, or idiocy 🙂 , or whatever it is that you want to call it Claudius, has created the environment that has allowed the players to become part of the problem.
The breakdown in the player / manager relationship was the primary reason that AVB got the sack?
I also read that even Abramovich may have twigged this as apparently he called a meeting with the players to let them know his feelings on the performances that they have been serving up of late.

Pardew should spend some time talking about some of AVB's tactics, squad selections, radio comments and TV interviews before he goes off about the players. And last but not least, fuck Pardew.

Fact remains; power player is not a myth.

Captain wrote:

Fact remains; power player is not a myth.

Robin is a power player. 🙂

Claudius wrote:

Y Va, I'd suggest that managers come and go because Roman credits them with success and failure. For him, they are responsible for bringing glory. Not the players.

As for the players, they stay because none of the managers stay. When you are a Chelsea manager, you know that the expected length of your reign is 12 months. Would you start buying and selling players if that was your expected tenure? Or would you add finishing touches to the experienced and talented core you already have?

The problem is not the players. The problem is 100% Roman's impatience.

Goes without saying that Abrahamovic is the biggest problem but the first thing any manager would do, given half a chance, would be to move those players out which is a damning admission.

Most Chelsea fans that are clued into the details of the club feel the same, have a look at the forums.

GM, why would you blow up Chelsea if you are not going to be around to enjoy the fruits of your labor? Win now with what you have.
I know what you mean though. Any manager stepping into Chelsea would want to build his own team, not win with Mourinho's henchmen. But it's just not practical.

I can't see longterm thinkers like Wenger, Guardiola etc ever considering that job. Instant gratification managers like Mourinho and Hiddink would be the best bet or a lower-tier manager who has no other top-tier options. If that was the only call that, say, Favre got this summer, he'd be crazy not to take the job.

Player power is not a myth either...

Claudius wrote:

GM, why would you blow up Chelsea if you are not going to be around to enjoy the fruits of your labor? Win now with what you have.
I know what you mean though. Any manager stepping into Chelsea would want to build his own team, not win with Mourinho's henchmen. But it's just not practical.

I can't see longterm thinkers like Wenger, Guardiola etc ever considering that job. Instant gratification managers like Mourinho and Hiddink would be the best bet or a lower-tier manager who has no other top-tier options. If that was the only call that say Favre got this summer, he'd be crazy not to take the job.

That is true, but Roman seems keen on moving away from the idea that Chelsea exist for instant gratification.

  1. I think a poster on this forum said that one of the reasons why Ancelotti was sacked was because he didn't want to make big changes along with his failures in the CL (citation needed)
  2. Roman himself pushed for the fairplay regulations.
  3. He went with AVB, who was a relatively inexperienced manager compared to all his other appointments.

After the initial wave of success, Chelsea have always wanted to build themselves up by improving their academy and stadium. We take it for granted but there are a list of clubs who haven't managed to make either those things happen in the recent years.

I suspect even Man City will moved towards that model in a few years.

Tbh even if AVB was underperforming, he wouldn't have been sacked. I think it's the failure to qualify for the CL that scared them because they expected to be in it after all these years of finishing second. And rightly so, I guess.

Rafa Benitez seems to be next in line.

I heard Benitez ruled himself out because he didn't want less than a two year contract.

Agreed that Chelsea need to be in the CL with the level of expenditure they have, and their ambition. The end of season will judge whether sacking AVB was the right call, but it seems spineless at present.

they wanted to give him a contract to the end of the current season! Taking the mick...

Chelsea need to factor in that offering only a 6-12 month contract is like asking the candidate to take a 50-66% pay cut, given he'll be paid out and moving on within a year anyway.

Villas-Boas was sacked because the results weren't good enough and rightly so, he tried to change the system and impose one that the players were unfamiliar with and chaos ensued.
So much for him- Next!

It is rumored that Chelsea will offer Mourinho 12 million pounds a year to return. If that is true it would signal the risk profile of the job. Much as CEO pay has skyrocketed in the last 20 years as CEO average tenures have declined, Chelsea's salary could similarly rise.

One thing's for sure. 50m pounds or so spent sacking and stealing managers could've been better spent on another two super quality players.

Be hilarious if that were true. Mourinho really isn't the man to turn Chelsea's fortunes around from here when you look at it. So he'd probably just pick up the first 12m in a crumbling regime and get paid out the next 12-24m when he was sacked.

Villas-Boas slept at training ground, took final training session and was sacked... but Abramovich blames the players

Abramovich personally told the players they were responsible for his demise and warned them there will be 'massive changes' at Chelsea in the summer. Villas-Boas was so consumed — some believe obsessed — with the job, he had even slept at the training ground in a Japanese-style pod on Saturday evening.

In the dressing-room the players grew tired of his timekeeping, fed up of him monitoring their arrival some days from the balcony of his first-floor office.

Some started a game among themselves, flying into the car park as the seconds counted down to the scheduled arrival time. They would jump out of their cars with moments to spare, winding up the manager by acknowledging him with a sarcastic wave as they headed in to change.