Ancelotti becomes Abramovich casualty number six

So Roman Abramovich is now looking for his seventh manager in eight years at Chelsea. The reason, it seems, is that he will not be satisfied until his side win the Champions League. Carlo Ancelotti has been on borrowed time since Ji Sun Park scored the goal at Old Trafford that sent Chelsea out of Europe’s premier competition at the quarter-final stage.

Closest

The closest anyone has come to winning the trophy for Abramovich, and it was desperately, heart-breakingly close, was Avram Grant. Even that and a second placed finish in the Champions League and the Carling Cup, was nowhere near enough fpr the Israeli to keep his job so I suppose Ancelotti had no chance.

A club statement, and for club read Abramovich, said,

“This season’s performances have fallen short of expectations and the club feels the time is right to make this change ahead of next season’s preparations. Chelsea’s long-term football objectives and ambitions remain unchanged and we will now be concentrating all our efforts on identifying a new manager.”

Double

In his first season Ancelotti led Chelsea to a Premier League and FA Cup double. In his second season he has won nothing but runners-up in the Premier League and Champions League quarter-finalists could only be described as failure by the hardest of task masters.

I think it might be worth someone mentioning to Abramovich that only one side each season can win the Champions League and that there are some pretty good teams around who expect to win it every bit as much as Chelsea do.

Ancelotti has been dignified and professional over the last few weeks, knowing that he was likely to be dismissed at the end of the season. He has shown a dry humour that has endeared him to the footballing public and the media. After the final day defeat at Everton, even Ancelotti was struggling to find any humour in the situation. He knew he would be sacked. He didn’t know it would be witghin ten minutes, but he knew what was coming.

Speaking

Speaking immediately after the game he said,

“I am now on holiday, but I am not sure how long my holiday will be. We haven’t arranged any meeting but I think in the next week, now the season is finished, the club can address my job and they will take a decision. I have to wait and see what happens. I don’t have to say anything to the club, they can judge me on my job for two years. Last year was really good, this year was not so good.”

Of course, the Italian is absolutely right. If you judge him on his two years at the club he has done really, really well. Unfortunately, Abramovich demands instant success and a season that has only been moderately successful will never do.

Russian

This is the reason that nobody outside of Chelsea has any time at all for the Russian billionnaire. He tried to buy success and is absolutely ruthless in his pursuit of it. When he sees the amazing success achieved by Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United over so many years he must realise that sticking with a manager is the way to go. That requires patience however and a man who is used to having what he wants, when he wants it, is severely lacking in that commodity.

Abramovich obviously believes he can find a manager who is more able to bring European success than Mourinho who has won the Champions League with two clubs, Avram Grant who was within a penalty kick of winning it and Ancelotti who has won it twice before. Of course, he is wrong. He will no doubt spend a lot of money again in the Summer to try to buy the Champions League for whoever he instals, but so will Manchester City. Barcelona, Manchester United and Real Madrid won’t go away either. It is still an outside bet that Chelsea will win it and a better bet that whoever the manager is if they don’t will get the sack.

This really is the side of football that I don’t like.