Will any new manager be able to provide what Chelsea need?

By: Rob | February 9th, 2009

So, as you will have seen, Big Phil Scolari has walked the plank and is no longer manager of Chelsea. Blue Monday indeed. His Chelsea side, despite being within spitting distance of a Premier League title and the width of a post from a Champions League title last season, have been sliding down the table like a pair of concrete knickers.

Things started brightly – Deco won player of the month, and Chelsea looked good in the early pace – but it hasn’t really gone right for The Blues since, and they seem to have got progressively worse as the season has gone on. A few weeks ago they were still in the title race, but after a loss to Liverpool their confidence seems to have been destroyed and they now sit fourth.

Why? Because no manager has been allowed to dismantle a winning side. And if they bought in Gus Hiddink, Roberto Mancini, Didier Deschamps or Frank Rijkaard, would they be afraid to dismantle this side?

Chelsea’s real glory period started with arrival of Jose Mourinho, 12 months after the arrival of Roman Abromovich. Mourinho was able to build the team he wanted with the resources Roman was able to give him. He built a side that loved him, that still seem to love him.

When he left, he was replaced by Avram Grant, who from the begining looked like an intrim manager. He did however pull of a fantastic fightback, and as mentioned earlier took the side to within a hair’s breath of two trophies.

The key thing is, whether the manager is Grant or Scolari, they had to be able to make the side their own. Roman seems to have stopped the cashflow – partly making Chelsea self-sufficent partly Credit Crunch/Divorce influenced. Which meant that no manager was allowed to bring in too many big names. Indeed, Scolari bought in just two in the summer – Deco and Bosingwa. He’s just got in Quaresma on loan, but isn’t going to be able to see how that pans out.

What Scolari needed to be able to do is sell players though. Chelsea should have let Frank Lampard go in the summer. I’m a big defender of Lampard but Chelsea had just bought in Deco who does pretty much the exact same job. They also have Micheal Ballack in there.

I know it sounds a bit mad, but it seems to me that if you keep a set team in one place for too long they loose that hungar, that bite. You can keep some individuals (No-one is knocking Maldini, Giggs or anyone like that), but you can’t just put the same team out year after year and expect them to keep being as good as they were before. They loose that fizz.

Look at Barcelona. Last season, they struggled a bit in the Spanish League. How do they react? They sell Ronaldinho, threaten Eto’o with the door to shake him up. Loose a couple more. Bring in people like Dani Alves. Stick Bojan in the side. Its worked wonders, as they now look like the best club team in the world.

Further more, take Manchester United. Fergie has built several successful United teams, and when the time is right he knows when to hack the team apart and start again. He chucked Beckham when the time was right, he sold Kanchelskis, Ince and Hughes when he wanted to bleed in new players. He’s kept a few core players – Giggs, Scholes, Gary Neville, but even his Fledgling side were mostly shown the door when Fergie got the itch to rebuild.

That’s what Chelsea need from whoever they get next. Whether Peter Kenyon or indeed, Roman will let that happen is anybodies guess. But if they want to keep it fresh and get back on top, they need to trim the squad first.