Chelsea merry-go-round

[Deuce Bigolo]

I'm on the record as saying my memory is like a piece of swiss cheese
and i didnt want to bother brother wiki to make it look like I knew more than i could actually recall

[Deuce Bigolo]

lol

She should lay her hands on RA and say WTF are you on

"Dynasties are built over time and not bought overnight you FOOL"

[David Johnson]

""Dynasties are built over time and not bought overnight you FOOL"

Yep, Abramovich needs to use as his model, the way the England football team has been run over the last 20 years.

Err, perhaps not.......

[welkram]

Next Sunday Manchester United play the Baggies at Old Trafford, if the Mancs loose will Alec Ferguson follow Mick McCarthy and Andre Villas-Boas and get the sack?

[JamesW]

David Johnson wrote:

> Perhaps if Abramovich had had the following
>
> "As has been widely reported in the media already, Mr
> Abramovich told the players on Sunday what he thinks of their
> performances this season."
>
> a few months earlier, he might not have been in the position at
> the weekend where he felt he had to get rid of yet another
> manager.
>
> That's the point.


If that's the point it's a very feeble one.

Unfortunately AVB was mismanaging the club, with questionable team selections including persevering with some players who were clearly not good enough, hopeless tactics including the 'high line' which had to be abandoned, continual puzzling and baffling substitutions, bizarre treatment of many players, including many of the young players, ham-handed handling of media interviews, which was comic at times and made fun of in the media, petty and vindictive treatment of those who were leaving the club, not to mention having a misplaced arrogance and a refusal to contemplate engaging in any form of man management. This is the man who said it didn't matter whether or not the players believed in what he was doing.

David Johnson's solution to this is for the owner to have spoken to the players. !confused!

When the Wolves chairman took this approach and lectured the players after a 0-3 defeat against Liverpool, not only did he undermine the manager McCarthy but Wolves promptly responded with a 1-5 loss to West Brom, so maybe on the balance of the evidence this isn't one of David Johnson's most brilliant ideas.

[JamesW]

A few words from BBC Sport:

Graham Taylor, who managed at Molineux between 1994 and 1995, told BBC Radio 5 live 's Shelagh Fogarty that Morgan's behaviour at the end of the Liverpool game may have fatally undermined McCarthy's relationship with his players.

"I think this probably started when Steve Morgan went into the dressing room and delivered a message to the players", Taylor said .

"Your players see that and think: 'Who's in charge at this club? It's not Mick McCarthy, it's Steve Morgan.'"

Charles Ross, editor of A Load Of Bull, a Wolves fanzine, agreed with Taylor's opinion.

"It's absolutely right to say Morgan's actions after the Liverpool game fatally undermined Mick McCarthy", he told BBC Sport. "He damaged Mick's relationship with the squad.

"I thought when Morgan went into the dressing room he crossed a line with the squad and the manager. There was no going back from that.

"A degree of culpability attaches to Morgan on that front. Once he crossed that boundary, he might as well have sacked McCarthy then, rather than waiting another two games."

[David Johnson]

"If that's the point it's a very feeble one."

No it isn't.

"David Johnson's solution to this is for the owner to have spoken to the players."

This is an illogical point made totally out of context. I will repeat since you appear to have lost the thread of the argument.

The points I made:

1. Abramovich wants to start with himself to work out why Chelsea haven't sustained the success under Mourinho. Ancelotti, Vilas Boas, Hiddink etc have all got good track records with lesser teams on paper. As Deuce has rightly poiinted out the way to build empires is continuity not getting rid of managers with ludicrous regularity so that there is a total absence of stability in the club.

2.After looking at himself he (Abramovich) wants to look at the performances of the "star" players in his team who seem to think they are more important than the club. This is NOT just about AVB. As I stated and you have ignored, the player power has been going on for years at CHelsea. There was apparently a concerted campaign amongst some players to get rid of Scolari, for example. If Abramovich had nipped this in the bud years ago, he would have avoided the situation in which many of the team were clearly just ignoring AVB's instructions on the pitch, speaking against him in the media and generally trying to undermine him. Whoever Chelsea have as manager, unless this ongoing outbreak of player power gets stopped, particularly amongst the senior players there will be problems.

You compare the situation of Abramovich speaking to the players with that of the owner of Wolves.

This example is ludicrously inappropriate. Why? Wolves are a journeyman side who have few if any household names with reputations and long lists of England caps to back this up. I am talking about the need of Abramovich to crack down on player power. The Wolves owners' intervention was about something completely different in a completely different club scenario. Obviously....

"so maybe on the balance of the evidence this isn't one of David Johnson's most brilliant ideas."

It probably would help if you grasped my argument first before giving it a rating.

[JamesW]

David Johnson wrote:

> Ancelotti, Vilas Boas, Hiddink etc have all got good track
> records with lesser teams on paper.


Villas Boas, a good track record? Total piffle.

Portugal?s Liga isn't a pushover but it's not that demanding, especially if you're managing Porto. They have won it 14 times in the last 20 years, including 5 of the last 6. Porto are also one of Europe?s best-run clubs whereas both their title rivals, Benfica and Sporting, have recently been beset with boardroom rivalries and financial problems.

Porto?s success in Europe may have been what caught Mr Abramovich's eye, particularly the defeat of the two Moscow clubs, CSKA and Spartak. But how significant is that Europa League win? Some quite modest teams have reached the final in recent years. To win the trophy Porto played 17 matches, drawing against Besiktas in the group stage and losing twice to Spanish clubs in the knockout rounds. The opposition was generally weak, with the exception of Villarreal in the semi-final. Then in the final Porto won 1-0 against fellow Portuguese club Braga .

A good track record? A Portuguese championship and a Europa Cup? Unfortunately the truth is that Villas Boas was way under-qualified and way too inexperienced to manage a club like Chelsea and he was simply out of his depth.

Appointing him was a gamble and it just didn't pay off. Sometimes you take a punt and you lose. That's life.

[David Johnson]

I notice you have proved incapable of replying to the points I raise in my post here about the limitations of your post.

http://bgafd.co.uk/forum/read.php?f=3&i=254863&t=254729

Never mind, I can understand why.

So what have you moved onto this time. Having shown your ignorance of the setup at Wolves and its appropriateness to the Chelsea scenario, you now hold forth on Porto.

First you state
"Villas Boas, a good track record? Total piffle. "

Then you state
"Porto?s success in Europe may have been what caught Mr Abramovich's eye, particularly the defeat of the two Moscow clubs, CSKA and Spartak."

You have contradicted yourself already.

He had taken advice from Bobby Robson and had experience of working with Mourinho at Porto. He was also part of Mourinho's backroom team at Chelsea and Inter. So he served his apprenticeship with two of the best managers around.

To be the youngest ever manager to win a European trophy is no mean achievement. Prior to Chelsea where had AVB failed? And to win four trophies at such a young age without a failure, is a "good track record".

What Abramovich was clearly looking for was a manager who had experience including EUropean success, but also could be around for a long time to build a team. Unlike the Old Trafford and Arsenal owners, Abramovich proved himself incapable of waiting and reverted to type.

[JamesW]

David Johnson wrote:

> As I stated and you have ignored, the player power
> has been going on for years at CHelsea. There was apparently a
> concerted campaign amongst some players to get rid of Scolari,
> for example.


Total fantasy.

Things were not going well under Scolari. Mr Abromovich asked the players for their opinion on what was going wrong. Since they had been asked, 3 of the players went to see Mr Abramovich and gave him their opinion.

That's all.

The "concerted campaign" you speak of exists only in your imagination.