Monday 5 March 2012

Bye Bye Boas

Less than a month ago I posted an article around Fernando Torres and warned that changes were needed to get him back to form, one of which would likely be for Roman Abramovich to decide that enough was enough and for him to swing the sacking axe – guess what? I was right...

I've seen this coming for months, so the only really surprising thing to me is how long it seemingly took to make the decision. From day one AVB displayed a level of arrogance that makes even former mentor Jose Mourinho look humble, and yet displays on the pitch have never risen to match it.

I know that there's a lot of shocked Chelsea fans out there who can't understand this decision, and see it as a case of player power winning out over the manager who was desperately trying to make a long term change at their club. I see things in a different light.

Firstly I think his team selections have been highly questionable on a number of occasions, particularly with proven, quality players being left out for no apparent reason, a formation that doesn't get the best out of the players available, and what can only be described as the worst Chelsea defence since the days of Michael Duberry playing for them!

Never mind spending £18 million on Lukaku or £12 on Raul Meireles, how about spending some money on some decent defenders? John Terry has looked poor for a long time and is no longer the dominating figure he used to be, Luiz appears to have fallen out of a time machine where he was last seen playing for Brazil in the early 80's – no defence, but good going forwards, a fact which could arguably be applied to Bosingwa as well.

The January signing of Gary Cahill was a good first step towards solving the problems, but it was already 4 months too late, and even if they'd signed the likes of Pique or Vidic, it would have been irrelevant with the dross alongside them being the issue instead.

Similarly in midfield there were some truly odd changes, not least of which the dropping of players like Lampard and Malouda, who apparently have been penalised for being older players, regardless of the fact that both of them had hit double figures for goalscoring for the last 2 years. Malouda in particular has suffered here, as with the signing of Juan Mata, AVB had decided that Malouda was done – as even Daniel Sturridge and Anelka have spent more time on the wing than Malouda.

I've covered the misuse of Torres already, and as briefly mentioned earlier – WTF was the signing of Lukaku about? You don't pay £18 million to sign a player just to sit on the bench. It's absolute nonsense, especially when Drogba was away at the ACON, Anelka had disappeared to China and Torres was struggling, you'd expect the guy to be given a chance to shine, instead he got 10 minutes against Swansea and 15 minutes against Norwich – both as a late sub.

The formation was always the same 4-3-3 that he liked to use at Porto, but when up against better teams that knew how to deal with it, he had no clue how to change things to maintain the advantage, nor did he care that players like Sturridge were being forced out of position to accommodate it.

It's actually a testament to Sturridge's talent, that he did so well considering this choice, although his loss of form and goalscoring over the last two months should have been a warning sign that there's only so much you can get away with, but of course this would have meant changing the formation – not happening was it AVB?

The big talking point now is going to be who is AVB's replacement, and as it appears that England have interest in looking at non-English managers, so in my mind this would be the ideal time for Abramovich to call upon Frank Rijkaard.

Although currently managing Saudi Arabia, they've just been knocked out of the world cup qualifiers, so a move may be on the cards for him anyway, and the Chelsea job is arguably a perfect fit.

Whilst Guardiola is getting all the publicity, lets not forget that it was Rijkaard who pretty much built the Barcelona team that is the talk of the town. A manager who knows that you need a balance of youth and experience, he's not likely to throw the baby out with the bathwater and he has the credentials to stand up to ANY player in the modern game.

Whoever the selection ends up being, they've got to know that League and Champions League titles are required to stay in the job beyond a single season, and if they fail to deliver we could be discussing this topic all over again next year...