7 managers in 7 years - is it really THAT bad?

[Tomo 21,733]

The media and rival fans love using the 7 managers in 7 years to put us down, but when looking at it throughly is it acutally as bad as people make out?

Claudio Ranieri - great man as he is he never seemed to have that killer instint that separates the nearly men to the winners, he did amazing getting us into the cl but his runners up medals on his cv says it all and Roman was never going to accept runners up.

Jose Mourinho - The only serious stupid one, i still believe had we kept him in 07/08 he would have had his best season yet and maybe even the quad, having said that how long would he have carried on with us? if he won the quad he might have left on a high and Roman was getting fed up with the lifeless football we were playing under him.

Avram Grant - Rival fans will point to the champions league final, Chelsea fans however will point too shocking tactics that lost us 10 points in injury time, lost us the carling cup final, got us knocked out of the FA Cup against Barnsley when the other big boys were out and while it was not his fault Terry slipped it was his fault that game went to pens in the first place. All that i have not even mentioned his horrendus man management that got half the squad considering their futures.

Big Phil Scolari - What has not been said? he was out of his depth, exposed as a one trick pony by Rafa and never recovered.

Guus Hiddink - Was a caretaker, had no intention of staying full time and made it clear from day one.

Carlo Ancelotti - Rival fans will point to the double, and while i was one of Carlo's biggest backers on this forum and wanted him to be given another season to recover the performances and tactics last season were dire, leaving a hungry Sturridge on the bench,persisting with off form players and the one that annoyed me the most naming teams in pre match press conferences gave the opponents a upper hand. Yes i wanted Carlo another season to rectivy it but if he didn't it would have got worse.

So looking at the bigger picture is the 7 in 7 statistic really that bad? not saying Andre has not got a big challenge ahead of him but Roman is not as trigger happy as some like to believe.

[Beast 85]

Yes it is.

Good points, though.

[francozola 2,040]

Jose and Carlo have been the only real questionable sackings. Scolari was a fucking joke and Ranieri did all that he could but he clearly wasn't the man to take us the step further

[BlueLion. 21,491]

Grant, Scolari, and to a very small extent Ranieri and Ancelotti all had to go, for various reasons. I don't have to reiterate my stance on Carlo though, everyone on this forum knows I remain one of his biggest supporters. I don't think its fair to include Hiddink on the list, the man was a caretaker coach, no matter what the title was, much the same as Wilkins when he stepped in for the Watford game in the FA Cup in 08/09. The only absolutely ridiculous decision was getting rid of Mourinho, though I obviously don't agree with the Ancelotti sacking for one obvious reason; the Double.

People have to realise this club looks to the short-term, and if it continues to bring success, I won't question it.

[EskWeston 696]

It depends on your perspective, of course it is not good to see such constant change. But when you look at the success we have had over that period compared to other clubs who have held onto their managers then we are obviously doing something right. I am sure everyone would love to see a manager stay for 10 years and create something special but the most important thing is that we stay competitive and even with all those changes we have been able to do that.

[Fulham Broadway 16,851]

Linked to what the club has achieved, it has worked out OK. We just have to put up with the Russian way ie you never let the grass grow under your feet. Yes Mourinho going was a mistake, but in hindsight he is the sort of bloke that could have just walked out some day anyway. Grunt should never have been given a sniff. I'm certain Carlo would have outed some players that let him down last season, if he was stiill here Now we have another gaffer and it appears everyone gets another chance to impress when some really should be long gone imo. That's another story though and we have to deal with what we have so it all depends on how AVG sets us up and gets the players doing what Carlo couldn't do last season......

[bombayblue™ 55]

It depends on your perspective, of course it is not good to see such constant change. But when you look at the success we have had over that period compared to other clubs who have held onto their managers then we are obviously doing something right. I am sure everyone would love to see a manager stay for 10 years and create something special but the most important thing is that we stay competitive and even with all those changes we have been able to do that.

Very well said.

If I may add, despite the media trying to make us believe all managers were sacked for not winning the CL, none of them actually were. I doubt if it was even part of the reason. The teams were struggling or becoming stagnant when the managers were fired/left.

[EskWeston 696]

Very well said.

If I may add, despite the media trying to make us believe all managers were sacked for not winning the CL, none of them actually were. I doubt if it was even part of the reason. The teams were struggling or becoming stagnant when the managers were fired/left.

Agree with that, with each manager you can look to certain things that led to them going. Carlo's was that there was no real indication of being able to turn around the poor performances that we were putting in last season. Grant's was just because he was a waste of space. Scolari too was obvious that he was never going to turn things around and Jose fell out with Roman.

[TomCFC 356]

Yes, far too many. Scolari just had to go, but Mourinho and Ancelotti certainly didn't. I don't think it's fair to include a temporary manager like Hiddink in that list. Grant may have relegated two clubs in as many years, but he took over at a difficult time and did a lot for us in less a season - he took the title race to the last day of the season, we lost the Carling Cup final in extra time and the Champions League final on penalties. Had the Moscow goals been one inch wider, he would have gone down in history.

[Tomo 21,733]

Yes, far too many. Scolari just had to go, but Mourinho and Ancelotti certainly didn't. I don't think it's fair to include a temporary manager like Hiddink in that list. Grant may have relegated two clubs in as many years, but he took over at a difficult time and did a lot for us in less a season - he took the title race to the last day of the season, we lost the Carling Cup final in extra time and the Champions League final on penalties. Had the Moscow goals been one inch wider, he would have gone down in history.

The CL final should never have gone to pens, Rio was struggling yet Grant kept Drogba on Vidic, given Sheva's CL final expierence not bringing him on was criminal. The FA Cup Barnsley didn't even have to play that well to beat us and that hurt, the carling cup final he got the team and tactics wrong, ie not picking a in form Cole and sorry but to lose 10 point in injury time is unacceptable. Yes ok he did well steadying the ship but that year we were at the peak of our powers and should have done so much better.

[Tomo 21,733]

Very well said.

If I may add, despite the media trying to make us believe all managers were sacked for not winning the CL, none of them actually were. I doubt if it was even part of the reason. The teams were struggling or becoming stagnant when the managers were fired/left.

True say this season we have 85 points and the champs have 88, our youth are looking better, we go out of the CL with a fight and not the lame way United knocked us out and there are genuine exicting signs for the future can any=one really see Andre getting sacked?

[termninja 5,290]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usxtc9A7cvE

[warnie_666 1,081]

It depends on your perspective, of course it is not good to see such constant change. But when you look at the success we have had over that period compared to other clubs who have held onto their managers then we are obviously doing something right. I am sure everyone would love to see a manager stay for 10 years and create something special but the most important thing is that we stay competitive and even with all those changes we have been able to do that.

I disagree. Changing of managers have made us underachieve. The year Jose was fired we lost the league on last day. That brings to mind the loss of Jose 2 days before our game at OT. Three points lost and no one was surprised. We shipped 4 goals against spurs and villa something that hardly ever happened under Mou. By firing Mou 2 days prior to that game at OT we virtually handed out the title to them.

Then we bring in Scolari: Again we handed the league to Man Utd by bringing in a manager who had only managed national teams and never managed in Europe.

And then last season we again press the self destroybutton by letting Ballack go and firing Wilkins when we were absolutely steam rolling.

We should have had 2 more titles atleast if it weerent for all the firing.

Not to mention the 55m on our losses that were incurred by handouts to managers who were fired.

Bottom line is if we had stayed with Mou we would have had few more titles and a champions league and more importantly we would have broken even by 2010.

Hence hiring and firing 7 managers in 7 seasons has done more harm than good to us and more good than harm to Man Utd who have benefitted from our boards mental handling of the team management.

[eldo 868]

We have Andre now so who gives a shit.

[BLionheart 516]

Fuck OFF !!!!!

Enough with the Roman bashing !!

Roman Abrahimovic is by all means a great man and a great owner as well , Let's discuss his so called mistakes :

1) The sacking of the special one :

Here is the obvious what most of the people think , How can you sack the special one ?? a manager who got you 2 EPLs in 3 years ?? the man who made chelsea champions ??

Mourinho is without a doubt a great manager but back then Chelsea was a newly big team and needed to gain popularity and supporters and with mourinho it's almost guaranteed that would have never happened with the required rate as he was " the enemy of football " , may be he has changed a bit now but as much as i love the guy and he was the main reason i started supporting chelsea but i have to admit back then he was such a pain in the ass that we were gaining more haters than lovers .

Another factor is his Football tactics , as mentioned before we needed more popularity and our game approach under Jose would never win you any fans , to be honest there was a lot of games under Jose that i who is a huge chelsea fan was bored watching the game , so how do you expect to win new fans .

2)The sacking of Avram grant :

i don't even to discuss that but i will as he is one of the so called 7 sacked managers .

Grant was here on a temporary basis and the agreement between him and the club was pretty clear that he would leave at the end of that season

3)The sacking of scolari :

Another so called sacked manager

Scolari deserved the sack , in fact he owned the sack he was a disaster and sacking him was the right thing to do other-wise we would have been humiliated back then just like the humiliation we had this season due to the lateness of carlo's sacking.

4)Hiddink :

Another man who was here on temporary basis and left at the end of the season .

5)The sacking of ray wilkins :

A great coach and assistant , carlo praised him and he was a great help for carlo

this man in my opinion is the only one who didn't deserve the sack , but i don't know the circumstances or the reasons of the sacking .

6) the sacking of Ancelotti :

he is a decent man , whom everyone loved and respected . he won the double in his 1st season and was the runner-up in 2nd one , how can you sack him ??and the team even played their best football under him scoring 103 goals 1st season

• the fact that we won the double means nothing to me because of the reasons and way we won it , if grant was still here he would ve won the double with the squad we had last year , the gap in squad strength and depth between us and our nearest challengers (man utd) was so big that we should have won that league 7 or 8 weeks before it's end , but even then we had to win the league by a difference of 1 point at the last game of the season .
  

• Only under Carlo Ancelotti chelsea became not a force to reckon in europe , even during our worst seasons before carlo ( 2007-2008 , 2008-2009 ) we were in the final and in the semis , yes we lost but we weren't humiliated or looked clueless as we looked with carlo against inter and man utd .
  

• in fact it's not just about UCL , before carlo ancelotti we could ve faced any team in the world even the great barca without feeling we are not equally favorites , we fans and players always looked pretty confident that whoever we faced we could win but with carlo it was more of the opposite as we have always felt we are not the favorites in any big game and that we could easily lose .
  

• Tactically very weak , can't motivate his players and get the best out of them , the team looks clueless under-him.
  

In fact i think carlo should have been sacked in december and if that was to happen we would have been in wembley against barca one week ago .

I don't get why does roman get all the blame for sacking those men , in fact i can only blame him for one thing and it's certainly not the sacking of those managers but it's the appointment of the likes of scolari and ancelotti .

In roman i trust

[watcherfromafar 11]

I think consistency in manager is a little less critical when you have the bankroll that Chelsea does, but I'm certainly hoping AVB can stick around a little longer than the others have.

[Naked Mole Rat 437]

As for the title: Yes, it is a horrible thing. First off, we wasted a crapload of money just switching managers. One goodbye and one hello cost approximately £15m - £20m. I don't know exactly how much money we spent just doing that, but it was absolutely unnecessary and probably affected our spending on new players as well, which in turn had to do with disappointing performances under some managers.

As for the second to last line: It's a good thing that you back Roman, but he was largely responsible for the departure of Mourinho, which was a big one, and he did so by signing Sheva. Everyone makes mistakes, and if you make a mistake you should learn from it. Roman didn't do that. He would every now and then interfere with the manager's decisions and throw the team off. Most of the criticisms he receive are fair, imo. Also, I don't see what was wrong with the appointment of Ancelotti or Scolari. Ancelotti had won the CL twice with Milan and he was undoubtedly one of the most respected manager in the world. Same went for Scolari: he was a World Cup winner. These two unfortunately didn't live up to their expectations but they were pretty unlucky, too, in that they didn't really get the support Mourinho had had. I agree that Scolari had a pretty bad spell at Chelsea but things could've been different had he got Robinho, and, in his two summers, Ancelotti got Sturridge, Zhirkov (Roman's signing), Turnbull (Turns out horrible), Benayoun (injured) and Ramires. That is an awful lot of support isn't it?

And one more thing, seriously what difference does it make if we win the league by a point or if we win it with 38 wins other than maybe it feels better to win all 38? Does it make us less qualified?

[Henrique 9,133]

I dont care how mucha managers, what I know is that in 7 years Chelsea became a big club in Europe, with fans around the world, and we already have players that say playing here is a dream.

Fuck off who want us to be a MU mk ii with the same manager for 436 years,