A Few Thoughts

Chelsea could learn from Liverpool

With Roberto Di Matteo guiding the blues to a Champions League final that a few months ago did not seem possible, calls for the Italian to become manager on a permanent basis have naturally been heard far and wide. However whilst the prospect of leading Chelsea to an FA cup/Champions League double and then being shown the door seems incomprehensibly harsh, in Liverpool their opponents next month at wembley, Chelsea can see both the benefits and potential risks of appointing Di Matteo.

Like Di Matteo, Kenny Dalglish took over midway through a season with Liverpool in turmoil and engineered an impressive recovery, managing to lead the club to a respectable sixth placed finish. However it would be fair to say that he has not found his subsequent time at Anfield quite such smooth sailing and many of the issues that Dalglish has encountered are similar to the ones that the new Chelsea boss, whoever it may be, will face.

It seems likely that there will be more established players leaving Stamford Bridge this summer to join Nicolas Anelka and Alex who departed in January. Didier Drogba seems certain to leave given his desire for greater financial gain and others may follow. Given this, new players will need to be brought in and quickly integrated if they aim to challenge the two Manchester clubs for the Premier League next season. Whether Di Matteo is  truly the man to bring this about is still up for debate and were he appointed he will face the same challenge which did for AVB in that the "old guard" of John Terry, Ashley Cole, Frank Lampard still need to be eased out of their current mindset that they are still the "untouchables" they once were.

Massive question marks remain over Dalglish in regards to both the signings he has made and Liverpool's poor league performance and some question whether the Fenway Sports Group truly wanted to appoint Dalglish and were in some sense were railroaded into appointing the kop icon by the fans who idolised him. Roman Abramovich is unlikely to be swayed as easily as Henry and Werner may have been, but were Di Matteo to win one of, let alone both of the finals they are in, it would take an exceptionally brave man to turn Di Matteo away. But a word of caution, there is a world of difference in taking over a team in crisis and fans increasingly disillusioned with the previous coach (AVB/Benitez) to being responsible for the rebuilding and progression of a club in the medium to long term as many on Merseyside would tell you.

Manchester City's Transfer Plans

Although he arrived with minimal fanfare and was described by Dave 'Arry' Bassett as a "Dennis Wise type player" in one of the most idiotic comments ever heard on Sky Sports, David Pizarro remains a tremendously gifted individual and with more playing time he could well have aided the club in the title race, specifically breaking down teams away from home as he is unique in that he provides real creativity and penetration from deep which is something they have lacked all season. It seems probable that Pizarro will leave Eastlands this summer and so the question is whether Roberto Mancini will target a replacement 'regista' in the summer transfer market.

There are no obvious names that stand out, Danielle De Rossi has long been looked at and even a list such as this one contains no deep lying playmaker. The argument against players like Pizarro and formerly Juan Roman Riquelme is that they require the team to be based around them and this is never likely to be the case at a club where David Silva, Sergio Aguero and Yaya Toure reside. However as Michael Cox illustrates City have almost every "type" of player at their club with one notable omission and whether the club looks to rectify this will be one of the more interesting aspect of the increasingly tiresome transfer market.

Long Term Doesn't Work for Everyone

The standard thinking in football is that for a manager and club to enjoy success, time is an absolute necessity, a long term plan is essential and any manager can only achieve tangible results at the highest level over a prolonged period. Yet there are certain clubs where this formula simply doesn't seem to apply.

The example I have in mind is Bayern Munich, who in their first season under Jupp Heynckes have reached both the Champions League and German cup final, although they faded in the face of  Borussia Dortmund's unstoppable march to the league. If you look back through the history of the club since 1963 the average length of time a coach of the club is in charge for is just over 2 years. Yet this is by far and away the most successful club in Germany. Obviously in every situation there are going to be vastly differing circumstances and one can point to the huge financial power of the club and the fact that they are always going to attract the best players so the influence of a manger is lessened slightly but my general thinking was that if this can work at Bayern why could it not work in a similar way at Chelsea lets say?

Despite both teams operating a fairly fast moving managerial cycle there are huge structural differences at both clubs. Whilst the football side of Bayern is effectively run by Uli Hoenes and Karl-Heinze Rumminigge, two legends of the club, so much so that Raphael Honigstein has intimated that they more or less take it in turns to appoint managers, the situation at Chelsea is strikingly different. Whereas Hoenes and Rumminigge genuinely have the best interests of the club at heart despite the petty squabbling they often indulge in, whilst at Chelsea directors such as Michael Emenalo, Bruce Buck and Eugene Tenenbaum are quintessentially powerless to Abramovich's whims and caprices.

Bayern's scouting network, commercial activity and playing philosophy have all been honed over years of continuous leadership whilst Chelsea's seems to chop and change on a regular basis.

The overall point is that all those who argue that Chelsea must appoint a manager and stick with him for a considerable period of time, whilst not exactly wrong, are perhaps slightly misguided. Whilst Chelsea and Abramovich should not be so quick to dispose of coaches as they have been in the past, just as critical is creating a better structure at the top of the club. Whether this is possible with Abramovich at the club is another matter entirely.


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