Guest Blog: Who says close season is boring?

Close season a bad time to start a football blog? Never. Although the summer hasn’t yet brought the signings that I, as a Gooner, am desperately hoping for, the close season’s managerial comings and goings have delivered more than a little excitement for football-starved fans – and it’s only mid-June.  

The season hadn’t even come to an end when West Ham decided enough was enough, and bid farewell to Avram Grant, who had led the club to relegation after a torrid season of bleak underperformance. Carlo Ancelloti, whose second place finish with Chelsea was deemed simply not good enough by impatient Roman Abramovich, was next to go, not long after the dust had settled on the final day of the season.  West Ham acted quickly, appointing Sam Allardyce a couple of weeks after Grant’s departure, and with the signing of Kevin Nolan revealed yesterday, things seem to be looking up for the Hammers – although it’s hard to see how they could have got much worse. The manager’s berth at Chelsea remains empty, although the smart money is on Guus Hiddink to fill the role, with Chelsea fans clamouring for his arrival and the Turkey national team resigned to his departure.

But things hadn’t even got interesting yet. On 1^st June, Gerard Houllier announced that his ongoing health problems meant he was stepping down from his role as Aston Villa manager. And the very next day, Mark Hughes left Fulham. To join Villa, surely? The Football Water Cooler’s George certainly hoped so. And yet, whilst Fulham quickly replaced Hughes with Martin Jol, securing the man whose services they had wanted a year ago, the Villa job remains open. Steve McClaren was ruled out of the role, with Villa owner Randy Lerner nervous about his club being the first to bring McClaren back to English football. No such compunction for Nottingham Forest, who, after Billy Davies’ departure a few days ago, swooped to secure the services of the man who just might be getting close to shedding the ‘wally with the brolly’ tag that has haunted him since his days with the national team. On the same day that Davies left Forest, McLeish was out the door at Birmingham, whose future, with the Championship looming amid an uncertain financial backdrop, is looking somewhat bleak.

All eyes now then, are on the manager’s role at Villa. With Roberto Martinez having decided against the job in favour of staying at Wigan, who he kept in the Premiership on the last day of the season, it looks today that a deal is going to be done to bring McLeish to Villa Park. Fans yesterday held protests against the appointment of the former Blues boss, and yet it looks today that the move is going to happen. Not only are at least a vocal minority of the fans deeply unhappy at the idea of appointing the former boss of their most deadly rivals, who just got them relegated to boot, but the fallout from a potential deal looks set to be severe, with Birmingham accusing Villa of “tapping up” McLeish.

So, whilst my initial idea for this blog post was to list the clubs with managerial vacancies, and assess who they wanted and who I thought they’d get, things have moved so quickly that Birmingham is the only high-profile club around whose managerial vacancy there is a little bit of uncertainty, with a host of young managers such as Chris Hughton, Billy Davies, Roberto Di Matteo and Gianfranco Zola all possibilities. In fairness though, Chelsea haven’t yet appointed Hiddink, and I’m sure that any breakdown in talks between the two parties will generate a frenzy of speculation, with Hughes’ name back in the frame no doubt and names such as Redknapp touted about. Could Redknapp follow Modric to Chelsea? Yes Chelsea’s apparent bid for the Croatian playmaker hasn’t been accepted, and indeed Hiddink remains the bookies’ firm favourite for Chelsea manager. And yet spurious gossip is the name of the game over the long summer, and there has been more than enough material to fuel this so far. And that’s just the managers – with several big name players leaving clubs this summer, and with many teams looking to strengthen in key areas (a tall and strong centre half for us, thank you very much), who ever said close season was boring?

Jess – Head of Content – Gooner – @jessicaenoch

BCC Football: Will Abramovich’s impatience lead to Champions League glory?

This post started with me posing the following question to Emily, a lifetime Chelsea fan: “Arsenal’s patience with Wenger or Chelsea’s trigger-happy attitude to dispensing with managers? Both finished trophyless this season but what’s the better approach?” However, having accepted her point that it is a little naive of me (alas) to compare Arsenal and Chelsea’s recent (emphasis on the recent – never forget that Chelsea have no history. But I digress) trophy record, the conversation turned to whether Roman’s expectations are acceptable, and who should be Chelsea’s next manager…

Jess: As an Arsenal fan, obviously I’m frustrated with how this (and previous) seasons have gone. However, Arsenal fans (though a decling number of us I accept) find it hard to envisage a future without Wenger. There’s an understanding that he has embarked on a long-term project with Arsenal, based around youth development, instilling a certain style of play throughout all rungs of the club, and changing habits and diets etc, and that this stability will ultimately lead to silverware. Clearly, these assumptions have been majorly challenged as another season ended pathetically and trophyless, but what is striking is the stark contrast with Chelsea’s (by which I suppose I mean Roman’s) approach to winning trophies – after a season without silverware, having won the Double the season before, Ancelloti was out the door. Is this fair enough? Obviously it’s Roman’s club, so to an extent he can do what he wants, but was he wise to sack Carlo? And in general, don’t you think that it would ultimately be better for Chelsea’s trophy hunt if Abramovich meddled less – giving managers stability of tenure and a bit more independence?

Emily: I guess I’m quite split about whether it was a good idea to sack Carlo. On the one hand, it strikes me that Roman is acting like a petulant child, throwing his toys out of the pram yet again because he hasn’t got what he wants. Having won the double in his first season, I think it would have been fair to give Ancelotti a little more time. On the other hand, I don’t think it makes sense to compare our one trophyless season to Arsenal. People talk about how destructive the Chelsea instability could be, but ultimately the facts speak for themselves. Yes, we have had 6 managers in Roman’s 8 years at the club, but in that time we have won 10 trophies (if you count the Community Shield as a cup – potentially tenuous I know). Compare that to Arsenal’s barren run and it becomes difficult to argue that ‘stability’ leads to success. As a lifelong Chelsea supporter, it was literally a dream come true to see Chelsea win the league and for my parents and grandparents who had waited far longer than I have, how can we complain about a strategy that for the most part has brought incredible success? As for independence, there I probably agree with you. You can see when you watch Abramovich at games that he is genuinely excited by football – it is like his own real life Football Manager game he gets to play. For him, I think Chelsea is more than just a business concern for all that money he has poured in; he has a real passion for the game and as a man who is used to getting what he wants, I think he is slightly frustrated that to an extent things are out of his control. That’s why he can’t help himself but buy players like Shevchenko, thinking if he can just make his own little changes, maybe he will get the ultimate rewards he is looking for. And that kind of interference can certainly lead to disaster and a team of conflicting individuals. Whether the same will be true of Torres remains to be seen. To pay £50mil mid-season is a debate in itself, and in a way it is surprising to have expected anything better from thrusting an unfit player, unused to the system, into the team in the middle of the season and hope for miracles. Hopefully with a proper pre-season, full fitness and some confidence, Torres will prove himself to be a good buy. And with Hiddink hopefully back, maybe we will finally get the Champions League winning combination that we’ve all been hoping for!

Jess: Unfortunately, as a Gooner, I do have to admit that the trophy record speaks for itself. Clearly winning the Champions League is the benchmark for managerial success at Chelsea. If Hiddink does come back, do you think he’ll be given any longer than Ancelloti? Or actually do you think Roman is only getting more impatient?

Emily: It’s such a hard thing to tell – he is certainly unpredictable. Interestingly, Hiddink has the best win record of all our managers in recent years, even Mourinho, and the fact that Abramovich has continued to use Hiddink as an informal consultant since he left shows he has an enormous amount of trust and respect for him as a manager. As we’ve seen it takes a massive amount of luck as well as anything else to win the Champions League and it is interesting to wonder whether Avram Grant would still be the manager if Terry hadn’t slipped on that fateful day in Moscow! I would hope Roman will give Hiddink more time, as I think Chelsea are in a bit of a transitional period – we lost a lot of senior players last year without properly replacing them, and the ‘spine’ of our team is certainly getting older. After some talk of focusing on youth and a smaller squad, with buys like Torres and Luiz in January and rumoured many more over the summer it looks like there is going to be major rejuvenation. Combining some big buys with the experience we have in Lampard and Terry, and the youth of players like McEchran will hopefully bring further success, but as we have seen from Torres, it is going to take some time for that elusive gelling of players. I hope that Abramovich can appreciate that…I think that because Hiddink has been his target for a few years now, he will be reluctant to dismiss him too quickly – if anything, because we have gone through most managers with impressive CVs already! Hiddink is hugely popular with the fans, the players respect him and Abromavich has coveted him for years…as a fan it makes me nervous, if this doesn’t work – what will?!

Jess: I’m not sure Grant would have stayed even if he had won the Champion’s League; especially with hindsight from his disastrous season at West Ham, I’m not sure how great a manager he is, he was just lucky to be left with a great team! To that extent, maybe Hiddink, respected hugely by Abramovich, would be given the time he needs to build a CL winning team. For my final question then, is he your number one choice to fill the seat left by Carlo?

Emily: I agree, I don’t think Grant would still be at Chelsea, nor would I particularly want him, but it definitely was a bit of a sliding door moment in Chelsea’s history – had we won, Abramovich may have been a calmer and more patient owner. Saying that, given what we were saying earlier about our success record coming from constant change– ironically it could have been the last thing we won, or Roman may have got bored from the success and moved on. For me, Hiddink has to be the man. Personally I wouldn’t have got rid of Ancelotti as I think his record speaks for itself, he adapted quickly to the Premiership and he had plenty of other factors to deal with this year with Wilkins leaving/injuries etc. But, seeing as he has gone, Hiddink seems to be the best bet. In all honesty, there don’t seem to be many viable options – yes, a Mourinho return would bring excitement to the headlines, and I would love it for the enjoyment of seeing such a good looking man talk so passionately about the team I love but realistically the football we played under him was not all that enjoyable to watch (other than the winning in itself) and I doubt the clash between him and Roman would not re-emerge. Guardiola obviously has an incredible record at such a young age and I’m sure could be inspirational – although, he himself admitted the ridiculously gifted players who surround him make his job look easy. Ultimately though, he looks committed to staying at Barcelona. As for Hughes, no thank you. To me, the fact that his name has even been suggested for the job is fairly laughable – given Roman’s ambition, to replace a man who has won the Champions League twice to a guy who steered his club to a hardly inspirational 9th place does not make any sense. The way he left Fulham so abruptly for bigger and better things also rankles me – he doesn’t seem to have much evidence to back up his clearly inflated sense of self worth. Of course, there have been some other names banded about – the idea of Redknapp or Benitez (one of the most hated managers from a Chelsea point of view) seems unlikely, perhaps Van Basten or Villas-Boas are more likely/credible options, but ultimately I believe Hiddink is the strongest candidate. What makes him so, I think, is the fact that he has been at Chelsea before, he has flourished, he wasn’t scared away and he can come back and do it again. Why take the risk with seeing how a new manager reacts to the players and higher powers when we know that we have a guy, itching to get back into club management, who has already proven that he can cope with this. Like I already said, we know the players respect him (Terry and others still keep in touch with him) and worked well under his particularly training methods, we know Abramovich respects him (a seemingly rare accolade) and we know the fans respect him (the passion in singing “we want you to stay” at the end of his interim season made for one of the loudest atmospheres at Stamford Bridge). Combined with the fact that I have met him and decided he is a lovely man, my vote goes to Guus.

So who do you think will/should be the next Chelsea manager? Would Abramovich sack even Hiddink if another season went by without a trophy? Or tell Emily what you think at @EmilyKraftman.

Jess – Head of Content – Gooner – @jessicaenoch