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For a successful club, Chelsea do have an uncommon way of finding trouble.
Jose Mourinho won the league and was in crisis almost as soon as the next season started. Roberto Di Matteo won the Champions League and lasted roughly six months. Carlo Ancelotti did the Double in his first season and was sacked a year later.
So it really shouldn’t surprise that, within weeks of landing the title, there is speculation over the future of Antonio Conte. The mistake would be imagining that the turmoil means Chelsea do not have a coherent philosophy. They actually have a very strong philosophy. It just doesn’t include the manager.
Chelsea no longer lose fortunes in the transfer market. Chelsea sell to buy. Chelsea invest in the academy but largely use it as a revenue stream. All of these are powerful principles in which the manager plays no part. He is asked his opinion, of course. He identifies areas that need strengthening, or others where profitable business can be done. And he’s handy to blame if a traded player turns up elsewhere and does well.
But Chelsea’s business is not the manager’s business and if that is what Conte wants, he is going to be disappointed. Roman Abramovich has had 12 managers in 14 years, not including short-term caretakers Ray Wilkins and Steve Holland. Yet Chelsea have been hugely successful. So the manager is an expensively hired hand, and that is all. He is invariably top quality, as are the signings, which helps. But the system is built to work no matter who is in charge, regardless of age, nationality or style.
Chelsea have a clearly defined outlook. But they do not, and will never, have an Arsene Wenger or Sir Alex Ferguson. They want Conte to sign a longer contract, but if he cannot stomach the lack of control, they will sacrifice him and find someone who will.
Ultimately, Arsenal caved to Wenger this summer, in a way Chelsea will not to any manager. Arsenal relented on the issue of backroom staff, on the director of football, on strategy in the transfer market. No Chelsea manager will have that freedom while Abramovich is owner and, if that is what Conte seeks, even if he does not leave this summer, he will not be a long-term appointment.
In Abramovich’s time, Arsenal have had one manager and he has led them to the Premier League title and four FA Cups. Chelsea’s 12 have won five Premier League titles, four FA Cups, three League Cups, the Champions League and Europa League. The club has identified a philosophy that bypasses the manager and any upheaval from his departure. Director of football Michael Emenalo consults, but playing the market is his role. Equally, Chelsea’s ethos does not have the aesthetic ambitions of Wenger at Arsenal, either. Abramovich is said to like good football, but he likes winning more.
Real Madrid are Chelsea’s model. Between November 1986 and May 2013, Manchester United had one manager. Real Madrid had 26. They won 11 La Liga titles to United’s 13 in the Premier League — but landed the Champions League on three occasions to United’s two. Manchester United took the FA Cup five times, Real Madrid the Copa Del Rey on three occasions. Manchester United won the Intercontinental Cup and Club World Cup, Madrid two Intercontinental Cups. They both won a single UEFA Super Cup. Real Madrid won Spain’s Supercopa nine times — Manchester United matched that in the English equivalent, the Community Shield.
The rolls of honour are almost mirrored — yet one was the work of an individual, the other a seemingly haphazard journey through global coaching styles. What ties bind Alfredo Di Stefano and Jose Mourinho, Fabio Capello and Leo Beenhakker, John Toshack and Vicente del Bosque, Vanderlei Luxemburgo and Jupp Heynckes?
It is the same at Chelsea. There is no pure football philosophy, as exists at Barcelona. Conte won the league playing in a very different way to his predecessors. Juan Mata was one of Chelsea’s players of the season in 2013 and, after a change of manager, relegated to the fringes, then sold to Manchester United in the January transfer window.
So it is not as if consistency is demanded, as if Chelsea’s philosophy encompasses playing style. Managers pass through. They succeed or leave and another is installed. The constant is Emenalo. Chelsea have bought well, and badly. Chelsea have sold successfully, and also in haste. Few youngsters come through, despite a fine academy. Emenalo endures. A different standard is expected of managers.
This leaves Conte in an awkward position. He would be a loss, but so was Ancelotti, so was Mourinho, and Chelsea recovered both times. Conte no doubt feels he is in a position of strength having delivered the title, and a new way of playing, in his first season. Yet Chelsea will not see his presence as the dealbreaker. Just as Zinedine Zidane does not sound like a man who gets the final say on Gareth Bale at Madrid — despite becoming the first coach to win back-to-back Champions League titles in the modern era — so Conte is mistaken if he thinks recent success can be played as a trump card. Chelsea’s manager is a member of staff, and no more.
Either a British and Irish Lions shirt is the pinnacle, or it is not. The idea that Warren Gatland calls on players by proximity — selecting six reinforcements of varying merit from Wales and Scotland, who are on tour nearer to New Zealand than England and Ireland — does the entire concept a disservice.
The Lions are under siege as it is. Gatland’s decision is unhelpful at a time when critics need no additional opportunity to depict the tour as an irrelevant anachronism.
Jose Mourinho would win no prizes for tact, but he was right about Chris Smalling.
Speaking at a seminar at Lisbon University, he explained that his tactics against Ajax in the Europa League final were to be more direct, and to avoid playing from deep. He said part of preparation is to know your own weaknesses, and that Ajax pressed high and would pounce on any defender who was not comfortable on the ball. ‘I said to Chris Smalling — with your feet we’re sure not playing out the back,’ Mourinho told his audience.
And while his critics may decry such tactics, this is what makes him a great manager. He is honest about the flaws of his players. He is not married to an aesthetic regardless of the personnel. If there is a problem — albeit admirable — for Pep Guardiola at Manchester City it is that he will never compromise. It does not matter if some of his defenders are uncomfortable on the ball.
That is the Guardiola method and he will not bend. Fortunately for him, his employers are providing the funds to assemble a squad that can carry out his wishes. But heaven help them if they do not secure the right men — because Guardiola will never adopt Mourinho’s realism. It is a fascinating clash of cultures. Romantics would love Guardiola to be vindicated; but the odds favour the Pragmatic One.
Contrary to the title of the film by Wim Wenders, most goalkeepers do not have any fear of the penalty kick. It is the one moment of the match in which they are not under pressure.
At any time, a mistake can undermine a good performance, but few expect penalties to be saved. The goalkeeper can only be the hero, the taker the mug if he misses. Look at England Under 21s’ opening European Championship game with Sweden.
Jordan Pickford’s name was in every headline as the champion of the hour, on the back of his penalty save from Linus Wahlqvist. Yet Wahlqvist took a lousy penalty — soft, chipped, and straight down the middle — which Pickford palmed out with one hand.
Soon after, he almost cost the game, dropping a straightforward cross from Wahlqvist, rescued by his team-mates.
No matter. The narrative had already been decided: Pickford saves England. The blunder was quickly forgotten — although maybe not by whoever made Pickford the third most expensive goalkeeper in history, signing off Everton’s £30million fee for a 23-year-old with 31 Premier League games to his name. As good as he is, that’s a lot of money for a rookie.
Riley’s right to say farewell to Fridays
It was not just the viewing public that was unimpressed with Friday Night Football last season. Presenter Rachel Riley has decided not to extend her 12-month deal, after receiving ‘hideous personal abuse’ following an off-the-cuff remark when Tottenham lost at West Ham.
Riley casually described Tottenham as ‘proper bottle jobs’ following the result that as good as ended their title pursuit.
Right or wrong, Riley was hardly alone in thinking Tottenham had blinked first at an important moment, but that hardly matters. The fact is it was an innocent aside, and certainly undeserving of the extreme reaction. Tottenham officials even complained to Sky. Incredible isn’t it, that managers and players are expected to endure all manner of insult in the name of banter, but any return of fire outrages over-sensitive fans?
Mauricio Pochettino will surely hope his team is made of sterner stuff than those who took offence at Riley’s mild jibe.
We are told that Gareth Southgate has the impossible job. Not true. Try managing Southampton.
Claude Puel was sacked last week, having finished eighth and reaching the League Cup final. The reason, apparently, was Southampton’s style of play. No goals, no excitement, it was claimed.
The fans were fed up — and the players, too.
So good luck to Puel’s successor. He needs to compete for Europe, while selling his best players — as Southampton always do — yet he must still win games with panache, in a way that keeps the crowd entertained and the players happy. Judging by what was intimated about Ronald Koeman after his departure, the owners probably want him to bring some kids through as well.
It might be easier for Southampton managers to please the crowd if the club had not sold Sadio Mane, Victor Wanyama, Graziano Pelle, Nathaniel Clyne, Morgan Schneiderlin, Luke Shaw and Adam Lallana over the last three years.
Then again, to admit that this is the reason Southampton no longer play as they used to would mean taking responsibility for a drop in standards that was conveniently shifted on to Puel.
In the circumstances, he did rather well. Certainly, his successor has his work cut out.
Word is that Manchester United have been quoted £50million for Eric Dier this summer. Yet if Tottenham are serious about winning the title under Mauricio Pochettino, how can they put any price on the deal?
Tottenham have finished above United for the last two seasons but if the club reverts to solving problems at Old Trafford — harking back to the days when they sold Dimitar Berbatov and Michael Carrick — there is no way those positions can be maintained.
It would be a good price for Dier but, even so, strengthening a problem area for United and weakening Tottenham’s own midfield — not to mention the message it would send to essential team-mates such as Dele Alli — makes it a very bad deal.
Ellis Short cannot help the timing of the Sunderland sale, but equally he cannot underestimate its potential for harm. He has placed a deadline on negotiations with a German consortium, or any other interested parties, and says beyond that he will simply press on with plans for next season.
That is unlikely to call anybody’s bluff, however. Sunderland have already missed out on their main managerial target, Aberdeen manager Derek McInnes, who no doubt decided he could do without auditioning for new owners. All but outgoing transfers are also in abeyance.
It was a similar story at Hull last summer, waiting for a takeover that never came, the torpor contributing to relegation. Sunderland fans may think that is not their problem, having already gone down this year, but a chaotic summer could put another season in jeopardy.
The Championship is a very volatile league and it is not unthinkable that Sunderland struggle again. Look at the clubs scrapping at the bottom last season: Birmingham, Nottingham Forest, Blackburn. Size is no guarantee of survival.
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