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AVB: Re-living Our Past Or Re-shaping Our Future?

I can’t help thinking AVB has had a bit of a crash course in the art of playing at Chelsea manager. God knows there’s enough material for him to mull over given the rate Abramovich has gone through them and maybe it is just that we’ve been down this road so many times before, but just lately each change of tact with AVB brings about a déjà vu moment.

To be fair to him, Andre Villas-Boas didn’t come to Chelsea proclaiming anything. Whilst some bloke who’s allegedly buying himself a house in London came in saying “Please don’t call me arrogant, but I’m European champion and I think I’m a special one.” Nor did he attempt (and embarrasingly fail) at humour with an Avram Can’t style “I am not ‘the Special One’. I’m the normal one. But my wife says I am special…” No, when he took over the job AVB insisted “People think I am the next one but I am not the next one.  I am a normal coach who benefits from having top players and one day I will not benefit from having this type of talent. I am not the Special One. Maybe, then, I will be The S— One.”

So, a very different introduction to Mourinho and maybe an initial assertion that he was is his own man, yet for the most part, you can’t help but feel we’ve been here before.  Ok, so Mourinho may well have beaten him hands down on the arrogance front declaring “I intend to give my best, to improve things and to create the football team in relation to my image and my football philosophy.   We have top players and, sorry if I’m arrogant, we have a top manager”, but he was run pretty close with AVB’s “What you expect from this club is to be successful straight away. I expect to be successful. To win straight away, on a weekly basis. There’s no running away from that challenge.”

Obviously that winning on a weekly basis didn’t pan out too well which brought the inevitable onslaught from the press. When we did get a win though, Andre Villas-Boas threw it at the press, saying “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.” But the press assault and retaliation is something he’ll have already seen for himself. Remember Jose after beating Liverpool in the Carling Cup? When he was questioned for ‘hushing’ the crowd, he told the press “The signal of close your mouth was not for them but for the press.  They speak too much and in my opinion they try to do everything to disturb Chelsea. Wait, don’t speak too soon.” Even the hapless Grant – when he wasn’t on a sponsored silence in his press conferences – managed to defend us, saying “You didn’t behave too nicely. Now I don’t respect you too much because we lost one game and you’ve taken it too far. I don’t like it.  You hurt my players, you hurt the club and this is not the right way.”

Of course, a common theme in the press for most managers at Chelsea is to suggest it’s Roman who runs the show. Fortunately, unlike Grunt, who indignantly responded by saying “Roman Abramovich has never told me one player that he needs to play, never told me to pick the team this way or that,” said Grant.  I’m in charge. Please, you need to respect my professionalism,” AVB hasn’t risen to it. He might not quite have got the humour of Claudio Ranieri’s “My only technical adviser is my mother. When I told her that Damien had injured his shoulder again, she said ‘oh no!’ Who should replace him? I will call her before the game to ask.” Or Mourinho’s “If Roman Abramovic helped me out in training we would be bottom of the league and if I had to work in his world of big business, we would be bankrupt!” But his splash of sarcasm is close enough when it’s put to him Roman made him play Lampard, Essien and Cole last weekend and he replies “What are you trying to say?. Of course, it’s a co-incidence,” before adding “I got the call just this morning to play them, all three of them.”

What about those players though? Well, with rumours about player power getting out of control and AVB standing firm on this in telling the press “They don’t have to back my project, only the owner needs to back my project. I think the owner has full trust in me and will continue to progress with the ideas that we have,” some have suggested it was a rocky road to go down. He isn’t the first one to have done that either though.  Scolari wasn’t backwards at coming forwards to put the players in their place, stating “When you sign a contract at a club you don’t put that you are first or second in the team. The coach chooses. This is my job to choose 11 players. The job of the player is to play. Finish.” Whilst even Jose Mourinho insisted “They have to enjoy playing for me and Chelsea but they don’t have to be in love with me.”

So you see, the current Chelsea manager definitely seems to have taken a leaf out of a few of his predecessor’s books but it’s his most recent choice of material that probably demonstrates this more than ever because whilst his previous stance had been to insist he had Roman’s full support before almost pleading for his boss to publicly back that claim up, with our Russian owner not forthcoming, Andre Villas Boas’ stance right now is much more reminiscent of Ranieri’s than any of the others before him.

When Claudio’s job looked about as safe as an open car on Merseyside, he responded by saying “I go day by day, step by step, that is my philosophy. It has been said I am a dead man walking, so I want to see only tomorrow. Since the beginning (of Abramovich’s takeover) I put in my mind that, even if I win everything I may go home.”

Andre Villas-Boas isn’t even winning though and having acknowledged the need to do this when he was appointed, saying “I’d be surprised to be kept on if I don’t win”, his recent Mourinho-esque bravado hasn’t so much been smothered as completely suffocated under the blanket of negativity around the club lately and clearly mindful of times gone by, saysI think I have felt the confidence from Abramovich but the pattern of behaviour of the owner has led to a downfall (of coaches) in similar or even better situations.  What will be the reaction? It will be one of the two, a continuation of the project and full support or just the cultural pattern that has happened before. We don’t know.”

The trouble with the Chelsea manager’s manual though is, unless Roman is genuinely planning on a new chapter, we already know what’s at the end….

 

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