EPL: Chelsea need a touch of Ferguson and Wenger

On the fourth of March 2012, one day after Gareth McAuley had scored what turned out to be the winner for West Bromwich Albion against Chelsea at the Hawthorns to give Roy Hodgson’s men a 1-0 win over Chelsea, Andre Villas-Boas was summoned to the offices of Roman Abramovich to be told he had been sacked: only the second manager under the Russian oligarch’s ownership to be afforded that luxury, the other being Avram Grant. Even the great Jose Mourinho was given the chop via text message.

And as the Russian billionaire and his inner circle prepared to add yet another name to the laundry list of men that now comprise of managers who have served under Abramovich, two things became increasingly clear.

As BBC Chief Football Writer Phil McNulty wrote on his blog, “Director Eugene Tenenbaum and Chief Executive Ron Gourlay were in attendance while Chairman Bruce Buck will have been kept in the loop as the end came for the 34-year-old Portuguese who has only been at Chelsea for nine months.

“Abramovich answers to no one at Stamford Bridge – certainly not the growing number of managers he has hired and fired during his time at Chelsea. If he has been taking advice, however, evidence suggests that some of it has been bad.”

And it’s not like the managers who’ve been let go of at Chelsea have been bad by any measure. Carlo Ancelotti wrote history by winning the FA and Premiership Double. His only fault was to not follow that up in his second year of management. Jose Mourinho has by far been Chelsea’s most successful man at the helm, but he was unceremoniously sacked a few months after the start of the 2007-08 season after failing to see eye-to-eye with the club’s owner, and his name is still chanted from the Shed as fans clamour for him to return to the Blues. Luis Felipe Scolari won the World Cup with Brazil in 2002, and led Portugal to the semi-finals of the 2006 edition, but he too was shown the door in a matter of months during the 2008-09 season.

But Villas-Boas’ exit has been on the cards for some time now. From the start, the Portuguese faced an uphill struggle. He was nicknamed the ‘Special Two’ on account of his close relationship with Jose Mourinho. If that was an indication of how soon Chelsea fans perceived they would win silverware, they were seriously mistaken. Villas-Boas was not allowed to take his own coaching staff to London, instead being made to work with staff that the board at Chelsea had picked.

The more senior players failed to agree with his training methods – in contrast they seemed to enjoy Di Matteo’s regimen – and more often than not, Didier Drogba was benched in favour of the woeful Fernando Torres, while Frank Lampard, who is the heartbeat of the team, was on the bench more often than the field.

But Villas-Boas had been given a three-year mandate to overhaul the ageing Chelsea team and replace it with young blood. Despite having bought Juan Mata over the summer, Chelsea are yet to find a coach who can provide them long-term stability. The club have seen seven managers sacked over the last eight seasons: a figure that only undermines Chelsea’s future. Rival clubs such as Manchester United and Arsenal have found long-term stability in Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger. Which brings to mind – for the sake of wishful thinking – what if Fergie or Arsene had been assigned to the Bridge as part of Abramovich’s overhaul of the club?

Ferguson runs the show at United and he’s always been a manager to have all the reins in his grasp. He would have easily been able to bring the likes of Drogba and Lampard in tow, given the way he handled the departures of both Ruud van Nistelrooy and David Beckham. To him, the club is more important than any player and quite rightly, the name on the front of the shirt is more important than the name at the back. His ‘my way or the highway’ approach has reaped enormous rewards for United, as is plain for all to see.

It is a similar story with Wenger. William Gallas was stripped of the captaincy and made to train with the reserves for his outburst at Samir Nasri, who in turn thought himself to be bigger than the Club when he left for Manchester City last summer. It was a similar situation with Emmanuel Adebayor who said he would ‘play like Henry when he was paid like Henry’ and was ultimately shown the door at Arsenal.

Both managers are not shrinking violets. They have their methods and it’s up to the players to like them. They both come in with guns blazing and say ‘we’re doing it my way from now on.’

Former Arsenal goalkeeping legend David Seaman once said of Wenger, “Everything is geared to his watch. He knows how long any training or tactical discipline will last and he will stop it right on the button,” while Sir Alex’s training sessions are tailor-made for his team, and the entire United setup, right from ages nine to the senior team, is geared to his methods of training.

If Abramovich was ever concerned about getting his money’s return, he would certainly get it under both managers. Not that it’s happening anytime soon or ever.

Most of the prize money from United’s winnings goes to the pocket of Malcolm Glazer, who is in the process of recouping the funds he spent when he bought United. Ferguson, however, has free reign over purchases, and has said in past interviews that he does inform the owners when he needs to splash the cash, as he did last summer when he roped in David de Gea, Ashley Young and Phil Jones. Ferguson is one who knows how to balance the books. He made a tidy profit in shipping out Beckham and van Nistelrooy when they created a ruckus, and also made a huge profit when he sold Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid.

Wenger’s called ‘The Professor’ for a reason. Under his auspices, Arsenal have built a new medical centre, a new training complex and a brand new spanking stadium, all while generating profit every year. Wenger has needed to manage a team on a shoestring budget but to his credit, he has managed to deliver Champions League football for Arsenal and pay back the 700 million pounds the Gunners borrowed to construct the Emirates Stadium.

And, had Abramovich wondered about the Torres conundrum, which Ancelotti put down to a lack of confidence, both managers also consider themselves – and are – skilled at bringing players careers back on track. No one save Sir Alex could have managed to bring out the best of Wayne Rooney and curtail his temper, and while Cristiano Ronaldo was talented, it was under Sir Alex at Manchester United that he became a world renowned superstar. It is the same with Wenger, who resurrected the careers of Nwankwo Kanu and Dennis Bergkamp, both of whom were unhappy in Serie A. The careers of both Patrick Vieira and Thierry Henry – no doubt they were talented – were floundering before they came to Arsenal.

Ardent Manchester United fans still say that George Best would not have died as a result of his alcoholism if he had been under the management of Sir Alex, who would have provided him the same help that Wenger gave Tony Adams at Arsenal, prolonging his career by three to four years at the very least, and taking him off the bottle for good.

Of course, Roman would have to concede that he would have to surrender power in the transfer market to either manager, something he would never agree to. It is after all, his club and it is his chess set. In his eyes, it is the manager’s job to move those pieces. Ferguson and Wenger would have never brought in expensive flops such as Andriy Shevchenko and Michael Ballack, the former more so than the latter. Shevchenko scored a total of 22 goals in 77 games, or one goal every three and a half games, if one were to talk pure statistics, which would only go on to underline how abysmal Torres’ own goalscoring record has been.

In 1996, just before Arsene Wenger was to take over at Arsenal, Club Chairman Peter Hill-Wood said that England were blinkered and backward as a sporting institution. The same statement can be used for the current Chelsea setup. The Blues are now without a doubt the Premiership team with the worst ownership, and with Abramovich going back to the drawing board, it remains to be seen who will want to sit on the Chelsea throne with the sword of Damocles hanging over his head.