
My opinion when it comes to the media is no secret. It’s something I’ve written about plenty of times – and in a world of free speech, am fully entitled to do so as long as it’s within the realms of the law. Not that they’ve hounded me personally of course, but they’ve done it to my club for years, so if I feel a response to some of the ‘stories’ they print is due, then I’ll have my say. That’s how it should work, right?
Apparently not if you’re a football manager though because it seems that whilst the press can write whatever they like about you, your club or even your job, any response to that is considered some kind of ‘OTT rant’ or ‘diatribe’ that’s completely uncalled for. Seriously, it’s like having some twat gang of school prefects bullying you with threats to get you expelled, then you impress the headmaster and their threats stop working – how tempting would it be to flush a few heads in the nearest urinal? And AVB didn’t even go that far, all he did was stick a virtual tongue out at them or at worst, flick a virtual finger.
Following our 3-0 win – and qualification as group winners – AVB says “My players deserve respect they don’t get. We’ve been chased by different kind of people and pressures and here we have given everyone a slap in the face.”
Going on to talk to the very people who have probably questioned his job for weeks, AVB says “It has been over the top. There is only one team in the country at the moment and that is Manchester City. I hope they qualify for the Champions League knockout stage but the attitude to them is if they qualify they qualify, if they don’t they don’t – we don’t get that margin. I will never criticise your editorial choices, but it is a reality. People take a perspective that is out of this world. We see a Manchester Unite defender (Gary Neville) today say in the preparations for the game and says things like, ‘I don’t want to be one of the Chelsea players today’, ‘I couldn’t play this game’ and ‘It is a difficult game for them’. This is out of this world, for me. I don’t believe this. This is continuous persecution of Chelsea. Continuous aggressiveness towards one club. We have become your target, we accept that.”
And then he flicks the virtual finger, saying “But you have to accept that today was a brilliant win. And tomorrow, it is unfortunate for you guys, because you have to report on a brilliant win for Chelsea and qualifying first. It is difficult for everybody and tomorrow is difficult for you guys.”
And of course it’s difficult for them. It’s difficult because we won and because we haven’t given them much to go on in terms of criticising the performance. None of our players did anything wrong – and whether they accept it or not – neither did our manager. Whilst they choose to call him snidey names behind his back like schoolkids and hide behind the title of journalists to make their judgements, Andre Villas-Boas simply called them out on it face to face because he has the balls to do it.
Let’s wait and see if they have the balls to take it on board.