As Ferguson, Benitez and Wenger look on with glee, is Chelsea’s house of cards coming tumbling down?
January 12, 2007 by admin
Filed under Uncategorized
I’ve got a lot of respect for Mourinho. Its easy for Chelsea’s Premiership rivals to point at the millions he’s spent and accuse him of just buying the league, but to do so ignores two very important facts; Chelsea’s spending was necessary to put them on a level playing field with the likes of Man United, Arsenal and Liverpool, who have had many years of financial investment building up their teams, Chelsea have just accelerated their spending over a few years, and, as Souness has proved many times, you can’t just buy the League title, you need to earn it.
Mourinho, however, probably feels that he has never had the respect his achievements deserve, and that’s probably true, and the comments recently attributed to him in the press are likely to further alienate him from his peers.
They will find it somewhat ironic that Mourinho is complaining of inflated prices for players when the current market conditions were largely created by Chelsea’s willingness to pay over the odds to prise star players away from their clubs. But in doing so they will also overlook the fact that other teams have been doing just that for years (Rooney anyone?).
They will also no doubt find it amusing that Mourinho blames his Board for the team’s performance against Wycombe, for not letting him raid the transfer market to prop up his injury ridden team, especially as the team he was fielding that day was probably worth three or four hundred times that of his opposition. Whilst every manager will agree that when you’re at the top the only way to stay there is to keep improving your squad, perhaps they will feel that Mourinho chose the wrong game to make his point.
But in truth, Mourinho’s transfer issues go wider than the team’s performance in the FA cup. It appears that Abramovich no longer believes that Mourinho is making the right decisions in the transfer market, so he’s made Arnesen the keeper of the purse strings. Any manager would be rightly incensed at this. It not only undermines his authority at the club but it is also an explicit vote of no confidence in the manager. This is probably the key reason why he’s been linked with Real Madrid and (more likely) Inter Milan.
So has Mourinho failed his chairman this season? Partly, but I feel that Mourinho and Chelsea have become a victim of their own success.
During the Summer when all the smart money was on Chelsea to win a third title in a row my money was on Man United. No, I’m not a United fan, but I felt that Chelsea would suffer from two issues this season; they were changing and growing their squad at too fast a rate and, perhaps more importantly, their players were getting too used to success, and maybe losing a little of their hunger.
But these problems are really only short term issues. The squad is massively improved, the players can only get better as a team, and it is surprising how hungry you become when you realise that you are about to lose your title.
So if (or maybe when) Mourinho leaves in the Summer, the Chelsea that he’ll leave behind will be in a far better position than the one he came to, but I’m sure he’ll still be looking forward to meeting them in the Champions League with his new club (whoever they are), and maybe then we’ll find out how good a manager Mourinho really is…..
“Arsenal have had years of financial investment building up their team….”,I suggest you do your homework as Arsene’s spending per annum has been an average of £4.5 million per year which is far less than Chelsea’s even before the Russian came along eg Chris Sutton and Flo and Petit etc etc etc
Mourinho is finally realising what its like to be under pressure. He has had things all rosy for four years at Porto and Chelsea. He has only ever managed the richest clubs in their respective countries and if you break down all his success, is without a doubt the luckiest manager in the history of the game. See what you do with no money. I personally hope he brings no one in January and the bad luck with injuries continue. COME ON SPECIAL ONE!!! Show us what youve got. Show us just how special you really are.
In my opinion I hope he leaves Chelsea for Milan or Real. He thinks he has no control now? Ha!! Wait for that. This shows one thing. He cant handle it and he aint so special.
Eddy, I know that Arsenal effectively finance their spending from the profit they make on the likes of Viera, Overmars, Anelka, etc, but its still a hefty wedge they spend.
Adebeyour £7m
Rosicky £7m
Walcott £8m
Reyes £10m
Von Bronckhurst £9m
Wiltord £13m
Jeffers £8m
Edu £6m
Pires £6m
And most of these were bought when transfer fees were a lot less than they are now.
Also if you look at the Arsenal squad, it has taken years to build it into one of the most valuable squads not just in the Premierhsip but also in the world, so its hard for other clubs to break into that “elite” without spending todays equivalent values
Yeah Chelsea created this devil market (they laughed at evry1 and said we were all jealous 23m SWP), so reep it. Man Utd were capable of winning the league last season if they buckled up, Van N, Rooney, Saha, Ronaldo, Giggs etc. They had better attacking options all round than anyone else. Chelsea won it through Defense, Gallas and Terry.
Maureen is not happy, that is quite clear, the jokes have gone, its all quite stale and boring like his team, no 1 cares, y play the sympathy vote. He had 16 midfielders 8 wingers 22 Defenders and 6 strikers, 4 goalies. Where are they all now?
They take away his cash, the bullying in the market is over, great managers don’t fix problems by throwing cash at it, he’s got to use and dependent on it now.
I’d like to say her proud I am of my Arsenal team.
Smuggler, sory u r taliking rubbish. The market value is not what it was then 50m Zindane, 40m Figo, 33m Buffon. The market average value for a top players is 15-20m, Maureen pays 20-30m to eliminate the competition. Wenger said it, no one knows better.
Arsenal probably about 100m over Wengers 11year reign, Chelski proably nearing 400m since the Russsian (half the time span, in a market that is suppose to be dead).
The big flaw in your argument is that you assume Chelsea were a long way behind the so called long-term investors like Arsenal & ManU. The reality was that Ranieri had built Chelsea into a very good team that was on the verge of being a real contender. With the money the “special one” was given it was not that hard to transform that potential into a championship winning side.
I do agree that in pure financial terms Chelsea were miles behind… in fact a lot like Leeds were a few years ago. But what they deserved was the fruit of bad business practice not dodgy Russian roubles. Wenger is right when he says that everything about Chelsea is false. Without the personal injection of cash from their owner they remain a failing business. You cannot compare that to ManU and Arsenal who through good business sense have put themselves in the position they are now.
Its true that good business practice had got the top “three” (prior to Abramovich’s arrival)in the premiership in a fantastic position financially to take advantage of the rapid growth in income that the English premiership and the Champions League generated. It was always going to be hard for any team to break that monopoly without serious financial investment.
Chelsea do have a long term plan (apparently) to reduce external investment and allow the club to generate its own funds and to cover the debts that are growing now, and while this seems like a hard task, it must be remembered that the restructuring of the Man United finances following the Glazer takeover has left it with a similar debt to that of Chelsea’s.
Liverpool might find themselves in the same position following the DIC takeover.
Sack The Jugler,so what your saying is that Arsene knows a bargain and can spot a class player who costs us £500,000 and we can then sell him for £23.5 million a couple of years later and Jose doesn’t have that ability?The fact is one of Chelsea’s players cost more than Arsenal’s entire team.Our back line cost us less than £1 million and Carvalio cost you £20 million.By the way how is Frank Arnesan doing on his reported salary of £2 million per year to bring on all your exciting young talent,hopefully we all find out soon when the Russian pulls the rug.The is nothing special about bidding £8 million above the closest bid for SWP (Manchester United bid £14 million)and then moaning about inflated transfer fees.i wonder what price Sheva would have achieved if offered to someone who knows the value of money and not a bunch of classless twats who used to play behind electric fences 20 years ago.
Morinho is for me the Premiership best football manager. You just don’t arrive in any new football league and win the title back to back, as that man did. Also he rise the bar so high that AW and Fergusson have to work over-night in order to remain close to Chelsea last two seasons.
The Premiership will lose a lot if Jose leaves.
Peter Kenyon and Franck Harnessen are the main problem at Chelsea, not Morinho in my opinion.
They interfere too much in his decisions making. These two people are not realistic; them, including Chelsea supporters want Morinho to win everything in a very short time. That why he is not giving enough time to their new recruts(Belaruz, Ballac and Chevshenko…). He is forced to build almost every year a squad, commando like, in order to produce results and not necessarely to build a team; because it takes time to build a reliable team that can remain stable for decade.
Eddy – yes Arsene knows a bargain, but not sure what you’re trying to say about your back line? Are you saying its only worth £1m? Its not, in today’s market its worth at least as much as Chelsea’s is.
The fact is that Arsene has developed his team over many years, building it and replacing it where necessary. Chelsea could have tried to do that but to do so would have not only taken time, but also would require a scouting system as good as Arsenal’s. Instead they decided to try to catch up immediately whilst looking at how they could improve their academy for furture years.
The fact is that Arsenal are light years ahead of any other English team in terms of their recruitment policy, which it great for the Arsenal fans, but means that everyone else is playing catch up. You can moan about how the others do it, but you can’t blame them for wanting to get ahead of you by whatever means are available to them.
You seem to be reluctantly and begrudgingly giving Arsene some credit for assembling a squad of quality players for a fraction of the outlay spent by Mr Ferguson and many many others.The fact is Chelsea’s are best summed up by that slime bag Peter Kenyon who believes money can buy you fans and class and make you into the biggest team in the World……a small question why can’t you sell out all your CL games(Werder Breven)and don’t give me the any crap about ticket prices?
Eddy, beleive it or not Arsenal also has money (regardless of how they got it) and this has contributed to their success over the years, which in turn has contributed to their fanbase.
Whether it is was Chelsea or Everton or Tototenham or Villa, it would take time to build their global fan base to rival that of Manchester United, Liverpool or Arsenal.
But are you saying that everyone should support Arsenal because you do? or because some bloke in Thailand does? Maybe the reason that Chelsea didn’t sell out for all their CL games was that they haven’t attracted the glory hunter type of fans yet?
You didn’t attract that many fans when you were in the old Division 2 either.What you are saying is that Mr Peter Kenyon may well be chasing a pipe dream in trying to make you the biggest club in the World as you won’t attract the glory hunters and therefore are unlikely to bring in all the associated revenue which comes with match day sales?Arsenal’s revenue from the increased ground capacity is over £1 million a game.My issue with Chelsea lies with the wild sweeping statements issued by the likes of that prick Kenyon that you will be the biggest club etc…how misguided if you can’t sell out when you have won The Premiership back to back and employed the services of two of the biggest names in football please do let me know when this dream of World domination is due to start.You are a starting to resemble a slightly bigger version of Blackburn in the mid 90’s and atleast Jack Walker was a lifelong Blackburn fan who bought their success unlike your Russian who clearly is perfectly happy to lose approximately £150 million a year washing his dirty illgotten gains in the Premiership.
Eddy, what is it you want to hear? that Chelsea are not as big a club as Arsenal because you have more fans at each game? If thats what is important to you then so be it, but in truth it just looks like you are desperate to cling to some kind of award so you feel so bad about Chelsea currently being the best team in London (based on results rather than on attractiveness of the football played)
It’s not what I want to hear it’s what I don’t want to hear…and that is classless twats like Kenyon banging on about how big your club is.If the rug got pulled by the Russian you would be a mid earning,mid division club(may I remind you that you failed to win the League for 55 years).Whereas our success is built a firmer footing ie we have to earn it before we spend it.The idea that one can play catch up with the big clubs by spending your way to success is likely to achieve success on the pitch for the given time that Roman ploughs his millions in,however I can see no evidence of your success leading to the building of the solid foundation that is needed for a club to be classed as massive,doesn’t it worry you that if Roman pulled out tomorrow you would be in desperate trouble financially ie your income doesn’t match your expenditure and there is no evidence of building a successfull youth team as Jose bemoaned this week.
Eddy, give it up fella, Juggler is a moron who will resort to calling you a c*nt if he loses an argument. He writes contentious posts on here to get exactly the reaction he is now coaxing from you. This bloke is a blue nose idiot who spends more time at Liverpool’s ground than he does that Shythole Goodison. Everyone in Liverpool hates him as he talks shyte, so he hides his scrawny little face behind a computer screen and winds up fans !
Hi Benny boy, are you always this insulting or are you making a special effort today?
regarding the comment about arsenal spending loads of money on players
while we bougt adebayor for £7m chelsea spent £30m on schevchenko and man u spent £30m on rooney. we bought toure for £280k while man u spent £28m on ferdinand and chelsea spent £20m on carvallho so by no way shape or from have arsenal ever spent money like arsenal or chelsea. in fact if you look at money making arsenal are around 6th in the lague
Eddy , Benny Boy…when do you finally realise that which ever club benefits from effectively limitless wealth, they will without a shadow of a doubt use it…And it will also without a doubt raise the old green eyed monster in the opposing clubs…..Chelsea are indeed in crisis at the moment…..that shows how sublime their ‘norm’ is if 3 draws is a crisis!…..Chelsea will win the premiership again thius year, Jose may or may not leave but they will remain the best team in London so get a grip and stop bigging your also ran teams up theres good kiddies!
jonny2