: Mon Feb 09, 2009 7:28 pm
My main concern is whether we've got someone lined up. If we haven't, it's another dumb move by Chelsea.
Abramovich has got rid of four managers since he bought the club. Getting rid of Mourinho is up there with the most stupid decisions in the history of football. Abramovich deserves to suffer for that.
Getting rid of Ranieri was done in a stupid manner because it hampered our efforts in the CL that season, but replacing him with Mourinho was totally the right thing to do.
Appointing Avram Grant was a ridiculous decision. He didn't have any credentials, any charisma, any record and he was seen as being the person brought in to remove Mourinho. His record while manager though was very good, but it was said to be down to the players themselves rather than him. I wasn't sad to see him gone and I don't regret him being sacked either. The main thing about Grant is why is hell did Chelsea give him a long contract and then sack him anyway.
I was pretty pleased with the appointment of Scolari, but nothing more. We did set out playing some more attractive football, and it obviously worked very early on for a while, but as soon as teams figured out how to play against us Scolari had no answer to that. One of the major things I didn't like with Scolari was his acceptance of duff decisions against us. This season we've been mugged by refs and he's just politely requested that refs apologise. If you are fighting for titles then you want to do everything in your power to get those titles. If that means giving refs stick when they **** up, then you give them stick. Accepting decisions meekly is a sign that you just don't want it enough. And if Scolari doesn't want to fight for honours while he was at Chelsea, but instead was just adding to his retirement fund then he can just **** right off.
I remained non-committal about Scolari so I'm not sure right now how I feel about him being sacked. He clearly hasn't been given enough time, but he didn't really have time on his side when he only signed a 2 year contract.
If we haven't got anyone lined up then it's just another **** up by Chelsea. My wildest dream is that we've got that Inter manager lined up, but that's not going to happen. Apart from him I don't really see who we will get. I don't really want Sven, Zola/Clarke is far too early, Capello would cause too much fuss, I suppose Hiddink would be the favourite but why didn't we go after him when we were appointing Scolari?