Every club needs stability, but not all clubs get it. When people talk about success they talk about the players, or the managers; but that can’t be achieved without the help of the owners of the club. Ideally you want the owner(s) of your club to remain in the background, only stepping in to facilitate the introduction of new players or help cut away the dead wood from the club. There is a fine line between playing your part and simply interfering and it is a line that has seemed exceptionally blurry for Roman Abramovich since he bought the club.
Whilst he may have the best intentions for Chelsea his actions can be a little over-zealous at times and that has undoubtedly been to the detriment of the club. Chelsea have had seven managers since the Russian took over the club back in 2003; they have enjoyed mixed success but you can’t help thinking they could have enjoyed more had they stuck with some of them just a bit longer.
Tactics
The first and most obvious point is that teams need to adjust to the different tactics of different managers. If you include all of the managers since Abramovich took over their styles are vastly different – from Mourinho and Hiddink to Scolari and Villas-Boas the adaptation required for the players is vast. Take for example the transition from Mourinho to Scolari. Whilst at Chelsea Mourinho relied on a solid defensive display and a direct, counter attacking style of play, when Avram Grant was brought in he was intelligent enough to not tinker with the tactics too much. However when Scolari arrived, a World Cup winning manager, and tried to get Chelsea to play a more expansive, attacking brand of football they struggled.
They were poor defensively but we know from their previous seasons that they were perfectly capable of performing better than they did, and we know that Scolari was capable of delivering success at the highest level, they just needed time. The same thing happened recently with Villas-Boas. He tried to get them to playa more attacking style of football and they are struggling at the moment. But given time they will adapt to the tactics the Portuguese manager wants them to play. Every team is capable f changing their tactics, just look at Arsenal’s transition when Wenger came in, but patience is needed and hopefully Abramovich will give it.
Transfers
The other problem with facilitating this change in tactics is that without the right players a manager will find it hard to implement the style of football that they need. Chelsea managers consistently have to use players that they did not buy. The only signings Villas-Boas actually made were Lukaku and Mata. Apart from that he is being forced to use players signed by Ancelotti who played a different style of football.
Obviously players such as Torres, Ramires and David Luiz are excellent footballers but you get the feeling that Villas-Boas’ team would be performing much better if he’d been allowed to spend the £100m that those players cost on signings of his own choice. The situation then becomes a self-perpetuating cycle as the managers struggle with players that aren’t necessarily the ones they wanted, they then panic buy in January and then potentially get sacked after underperforming. All this leaves the next manager with the same problem.
good article.
AVB didnt buy lukaku, he had been looked at for awhile.
his purchases have been Mata and Oriol, potentially the two best players this season. stay tuned!