Benitez rant adds to Chelsea farce

Rafael Benitez may not have had the rejuvenating effect on Chelsea he would have hoped, but we have to hand it to him for having the guts to speak out against the notoriously unforgiving Chelsea stake-holders.

After the win against Middlesbrough in the FA Cup, Benitez had a chance to be positive. Instead, his frustration finally boiled over — adding to the already incomprehensible workings of Chelsea Football Club.

“Chelsea gave me the title of interim manager, which is a massive mistake. I’m the manager. The fans are not helping us. At the end of the season I will leave. They don’t have to worry about me.”

While that was the crux of his unforeseen rant, he also said that the fans had a problem with him because of his Liverpool history and the ‘interim’ title was given to him so that the club could wash their hands off him in case he didn’t do well.

The obvious questions that emanate from Benitez’s words are these:

- What sort of message does this pass on to the players and fans?

- Does anyone have authority at Chelsea? Anyone?

- Should he even stay till the end of the season?

While it was certainly expected that Benitez will leave, maybe he clutched onto a glimmer of hope that he would be made permanent manager at the end of the season.

But after three months of constantly listening to the boos and looking at the ugly banners insulting him in every way possible — Benitez realised that he was actually done at this club before his contract even ended. But what was really surprising was that it dawned on him after a win.

Among all the Rafa moments we’ve had so far , it has to rate pretty high.

#Rafarant, as it’s being called on Twitter, passes a message of a desperate manager who cannot make it work at a big club. Benitez makes us count his trophies across all countries but you’re really having the worst time of your life if you need to remind us of your numbers.

To the players, it says — no need to listen to me, cause I’m leaving in June anyway (he said this to the fans a dozen times). Do what you do best… go out there as if there’s no manager. And yes, don’t pay any attention to what I say in training or whatever tactics I deploy. Not exactly ideal.

But the best part of his, let’s call it speech, was how he hammered Chelsea management. And Chelsea management essentially equals Roman Abramovich.

Few managers have actually managed to lambaste Abramovich in such fashion. Whenever Benitez said ’they’, he meant Abramovich. Whenever he said management, he meant Abramovich. It impossible to imagine Abramovich, with his quick trigger, quietly accepting such criticism.

To answer the second question, the only authority at Chelsea lies with the senior players (John Terry, Frank Lampard, Petr Cech and Ashley Cole) and Abramovich.

In a widely reported spat , Terry apparently stood up for his teammates when they were criticised by Benitez. He has subsequently been benched despite returning from injury and a player revolt is the easiest explanation to a string of bad performances. He had a bad start with the players, h inting that it was time-up for the seniors , and he’s headed for a ’no-goodbye’ exit.

Abramovich’s whims are well documented , but there’s no doubt that player power is abundant at Chelsea.

And for a manager to be successful, you need to give him all the authority. Benitez made it pretty clear when he said: “I am the manager. I make the decisions.”

But at Chelsea, you can only dream about that sort of freedom.

Finally, Benitez is in a dilemma: should he be the hard-nosed fella and stick it up to the fans till May? Or should he just take whatever little pride he’s got from this job and resign? While the second seems the easier option, Benitez is expected to stay on. It would be folly to add him to the list of sacked managers, but that is certainly a possibility if Chelsea’s European ambitions take a hit.

These answers also depend on a simple fact: Is Benitez good enough to be at Chelsea? Under him, the Blues lost the Club World Cup, got knocked out of the Champions League and the League Cup and are lying 19 points adrift of the top of the table. They now face a resurgent Manchester United in the FA Cup.

Football is funny, and there will be answers in the near future. But one thing is for sure: by saying what he said, Benitez proves that Chelsea’s working style is a mess.

Or much worse, a farce.