Would You Want to Manage Chelsea?

Filed in archive Managers on September 25, 2007

One of the best things about Mourinho was that he was never sycophantic towards his boss, but something happened on Sunday to suggest ass-kissing is the future at Chelsea. When Andriy Shevcheko was substituted off after another sub-par performance the Sky Sports cameras showed the owner and various executives motionless in their seats. But then Abramovich started clapping, big magnificent claps as is Sheva had just put on the performance of a lifetime. Before you could say "brown-noses," Peter Kenyon and some other execs were following suit and applauding the Ukrainian striker off the field.

There's also the fantastic rumour that Abramovich was in the dressing room after the 1-1 draw with Rosenborg, lecturing Michael Essien on his passing.

So now that Roman Abramovich has decided to adopt the not so successful Vladimir Romanov approach to running Chelsea, things are going to get mental at Stamford Bridge. I'm predicting a Hearts like situation where there's a revolving door policy to managers. No serious, established manager is going to want the job if they're going to have Roman and his beard breathing down their neck all week. Whoever's in charge after Grant (because he's not going to last) is either going to very quickly get frustrated with Abramovich's interference or be a yes man who lets the billionaire pick the team. Either way it's not going to go well, and there won't be many players who enjoy playing in that environment. Just as Hearts lost captain Steven Pressley due to Romanov's meddling, and now have a team full of Lithuanians, I won't be surprised to see the likes of Lampard and Drogba leave Chelsea as soon as possible and for less than they're worth and replaced by more Abramovich favourites like Shevchenko.