Here's an article from F365. I found it really interesting and really good, and kind of puts this whole chelsea thing in perspective :
http://www.football365.com/john_nich...745324,00.html
Money Can`t Buy You Football Love
Posted 21/09/07 12:50EmailPrintSave
Chelsea fans should be scared this morning. Very scared. If Mourinho's success was not enough, or if it is deemed to be success delivered in the wrong style, then the future for Chelsea is not only bleak, it is suicidal - because no-one can either promise or deliver that, not least because, well, what actually is the definition of style and success in football?
If Abramovich had Wenger as manager and he delivered Arsenal-style football and built a side that won the league every few years and got to an occasional European final, by Roman's standards that clearly would not be success enough. Wenger has not achieved this mythical double European title greatness that is apparently desired for the Chelsea 'brand.'
So Wenger fails the test simply because no-one can pass a test that insists the club constantly wins titles and trophies and does so while playing drop dead gorgeous football.
Liverpool dominated domestic and European football in the 70s and early 80s but could be a boring side to watch as they ruthlessly closed games down and nicked late goals. It's worth remembering that non-Liverpool fans were scathing about them. They were not loved despite the kind of success that the Russian billionaire could only dream of and despite having a history, culture and depth of support that are probably beyond his comprehension.
Abramovich seems to want Chelsea to be loved because by extension that would mean he is loved. He wants to be the golden boy who dispenses largesse upon the serfs and groundlings who do his bidding for him. Rich men are paranoid that people only love them for their money and rightly so. Add football culture to that deep paranoia and you get a recipe for instability.
He is not a football man, by which I mean he neither understands the culture of the game nor what makes it so great. If his love of the English game is based on the Man United 4, Real Madrid 3 in 2003 then that is the perfect illustration of his delusion. United won that game, but lost the tie. It was great, exciting football but it failed Abramovich's success test. So had Ferguson done this at Chelsea, and with only one European Cup win, he is not good enough for the Russian. Bye bye Sir Alex.
If Abramovich was a football man he would realise that despite his money and power, Chelsea is still bigger than him. He doesn't understand that the power base at a club lies with its fans past, present and future. You can run the club into the ground and kill it financially, but it will rise again if the fans want it to. It will live on long after a billionaire owner is in his grave. People who do not have much money and who love the area, culture and history they grew up in or who have an alliance to a football team as part of an inherited family tradition are bigger and stronger than someone who buys into football as a business investment or as something to entertain themselves with. That is a fact that a true football man would know.
It is entirely natural that Abramovich would want to start buying players and overseeing the team selection because in his world, a world he rules absolutely, he gets whatever he fancies, when he fancies it and no one would dare deny him it. Ironically, this feeds the rich man's paranoia that people are only doing what he wants for fear of losing their job or their privileges. This in turn leads to more mistrust and unrest at the club as the constant revolution of indulgences and whims continues. Managers and players will come and go as the rich man searches for more love and more pleasure and more excitement. It is a vicious downward spiral. There will be peaks but it will never be enough and they will be followed by deep troughs.
This is football and a true football man would know one thing above all else - football will kick you in the arse. It will eventually deflate even the biggest egos. It is an elusive art form that is subject to the vagaries of such nebulous human conditions as form, attitude and emotion. One mistake from your keeper can lose you the game, No amount of money spent by a billionaire owner can take away that factor, so it will always dissatisfy a man who sees it as a product or plaything. It will always be hard to export as a 'brand', which Peter Kenyon seems to think is the Holy Grail. A football club is not a brand like a trainer or tomato sauce. It is not constant; it evolves and changes. Trying to pin it down is like trying to nail jelly to a wall. This season's big success is next season's failure that is the nature of the game and a proper football man would know that.
Abramovich says little but in his battles with Mourinho he has shown us who he really is and it's as bad as everyone feared when he first arrived with a fistful of roubles. Chelsea is his self-indulgence; it is for his entertainment and amusement. He wants to buy players, oversee the team and he wants a certain kind of football entertainment that Jose could not deliver.
More crucially than that he would not do what his owner wanted because Jose is a proper football man. He knew what he was doing, why he was doing it and what would work. And he proved it. He was right all along. He knew it, the fans knew it but the owner and his people didn't. They wanted him to do what they wanted.
He has been replaced by a man who will allow the owner his indulgences but it will almost certainly lead to failure, and if Grant cannot deliver whatever it is that the owner fancies this month, he will be ousted for someone else and so on and so on until one day it will dawn on Roman that football cannot do what he wants it to do. It cannot make him look good all the time, feel good all the time, he cannot control everyone and he cannot make them love him, and on top of all that his club will not always be successful and at that point he will walk away and the fans will have their club back.
What kind of state it is in by then is another matter. But even if it is in a smouldering heap of rubble, it will survive. There was a Chelsea before Roman and will be one long after Roman. There's only one winner in this affair and his name is Jose Mourinho and ironically he will be loved and revered long after Roman has moved on. That is as it should be. A proper football man would have known that.
http://www.football365.com/john_nich...745324,00.html
Money Can`t Buy You Football Love
Posted 21/09/07 12:50EmailPrintSave
Chelsea fans should be scared this morning. Very scared. If Mourinho's success was not enough, or if it is deemed to be success delivered in the wrong style, then the future for Chelsea is not only bleak, it is suicidal - because no-one can either promise or deliver that, not least because, well, what actually is the definition of style and success in football?
If Abramovich had Wenger as manager and he delivered Arsenal-style football and built a side that won the league every few years and got to an occasional European final, by Roman's standards that clearly would not be success enough. Wenger has not achieved this mythical double European title greatness that is apparently desired for the Chelsea 'brand.'
So Wenger fails the test simply because no-one can pass a test that insists the club constantly wins titles and trophies and does so while playing drop dead gorgeous football.
Liverpool dominated domestic and European football in the 70s and early 80s but could be a boring side to watch as they ruthlessly closed games down and nicked late goals. It's worth remembering that non-Liverpool fans were scathing about them. They were not loved despite the kind of success that the Russian billionaire could only dream of and despite having a history, culture and depth of support that are probably beyond his comprehension.
Abramovich seems to want Chelsea to be loved because by extension that would mean he is loved. He wants to be the golden boy who dispenses largesse upon the serfs and groundlings who do his bidding for him. Rich men are paranoid that people only love them for their money and rightly so. Add football culture to that deep paranoia and you get a recipe for instability.
He is not a football man, by which I mean he neither understands the culture of the game nor what makes it so great. If his love of the English game is based on the Man United 4, Real Madrid 3 in 2003 then that is the perfect illustration of his delusion. United won that game, but lost the tie. It was great, exciting football but it failed Abramovich's success test. So had Ferguson done this at Chelsea, and with only one European Cup win, he is not good enough for the Russian. Bye bye Sir Alex.
If Abramovich was a football man he would realise that despite his money and power, Chelsea is still bigger than him. He doesn't understand that the power base at a club lies with its fans past, present and future. You can run the club into the ground and kill it financially, but it will rise again if the fans want it to. It will live on long after a billionaire owner is in his grave. People who do not have much money and who love the area, culture and history they grew up in or who have an alliance to a football team as part of an inherited family tradition are bigger and stronger than someone who buys into football as a business investment or as something to entertain themselves with. That is a fact that a true football man would know.
It is entirely natural that Abramovich would want to start buying players and overseeing the team selection because in his world, a world he rules absolutely, he gets whatever he fancies, when he fancies it and no one would dare deny him it. Ironically, this feeds the rich man's paranoia that people are only doing what he wants for fear of losing their job or their privileges. This in turn leads to more mistrust and unrest at the club as the constant revolution of indulgences and whims continues. Managers and players will come and go as the rich man searches for more love and more pleasure and more excitement. It is a vicious downward spiral. There will be peaks but it will never be enough and they will be followed by deep troughs.
This is football and a true football man would know one thing above all else - football will kick you in the arse. It will eventually deflate even the biggest egos. It is an elusive art form that is subject to the vagaries of such nebulous human conditions as form, attitude and emotion. One mistake from your keeper can lose you the game, No amount of money spent by a billionaire owner can take away that factor, so it will always dissatisfy a man who sees it as a product or plaything. It will always be hard to export as a 'brand', which Peter Kenyon seems to think is the Holy Grail. A football club is not a brand like a trainer or tomato sauce. It is not constant; it evolves and changes. Trying to pin it down is like trying to nail jelly to a wall. This season's big success is next season's failure that is the nature of the game and a proper football man would know that.
Abramovich says little but in his battles with Mourinho he has shown us who he really is and it's as bad as everyone feared when he first arrived with a fistful of roubles. Chelsea is his self-indulgence; it is for his entertainment and amusement. He wants to buy players, oversee the team and he wants a certain kind of football entertainment that Jose could not deliver.
More crucially than that he would not do what his owner wanted because Jose is a proper football man. He knew what he was doing, why he was doing it and what would work. And he proved it. He was right all along. He knew it, the fans knew it but the owner and his people didn't. They wanted him to do what they wanted.
He has been replaced by a man who will allow the owner his indulgences but it will almost certainly lead to failure, and if Grant cannot deliver whatever it is that the owner fancies this month, he will be ousted for someone else and so on and so on until one day it will dawn on Roman that football cannot do what he wants it to do. It cannot make him look good all the time, feel good all the time, he cannot control everyone and he cannot make them love him, and on top of all that his club will not always be successful and at that point he will walk away and the fans will have their club back.
What kind of state it is in by then is another matter. But even if it is in a smouldering heap of rubble, it will survive. There was a Chelsea before Roman and will be one long after Roman. There's only one winner in this affair and his name is Jose Mourinho and ironically he will be loved and revered long after Roman has moved on. That is as it should be. A proper football man would have known that.
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