AVB must emulate Sir Alex and face down current crisis

Chelsea players head to the touchline to celebrate Ramires's goal with AVB at Molineux.

     Three days and two games in the topsy-turvy world of Chelsea football club has seen them go from potential title challengers, to no-hopers, and back to challengers again. At least in the eyes of their manager Andre Villas-Boas. After losing to Aston Villa on Saturday, the Portuguese dismissed his sides chances this season saying that the league title was no longer a realistic possibility for them. Two days on however, AVB feels that "if we go on a run of five or six wins we can be fighting for this league." But then, we've always known that Chelsea are not averse to change, from the owner right down to the playing squad. 

     The Stamford Bridge managerial merry-go-round has, arguably, side-tracked the club down the path that has led to their current state of flux. Seven managers in seven years. Furthermore, of the six managers other than Villas-Boas, five (Grant, Scolari, Wilkins, Hiddink and Ancelotti) have been given less than two years to create and maintain the aura of success which the club became accustomed to under Jose Mourinho.

     Results this season have been erratic too and, once again, the manager is immediately facing flak. This is football however, and managers are only too aware of the pressures for instant success that they face, especially at clubs like Chelsea, Liverpool or Manchester United. What's most interesting about the most recent criticisms of AVB is that they have come from within the players' dressing room.

     Such voices of internal dissent, given intense coverage by the tabloid press yesterday, would be more credible were they being heard for the first time along the King's Road. There were grumblings from within the dressing room that, while they may not have been ultimately responsible for the managers' sackings, certainly did more harm than good to highly reputable managers in the Chelsea hot-seat previously. There were rumours of internal unrest in the last days of Carlo Ancelotti (one of Europe's most successful foreign managers), while it seems no secret that so-called 'player power' spelt the early demise of Luiz Felipe Scolari (a World Cup and Copa Libertadores winning coach). 

     Neither of these coaches were 'tactically inept', a common catch-all term for "we don't like this guy very much", and nor is Andre Villas-Boas. He is a record that, in two-years as a top-flight manager, includes a Portuguese League title, a Europa League title, and the record for most wins in Europe in a single season by a Portuguese club.

     In Chelsea Villas-Boas inherited club heaven, but one that contains too many fading stars. There is huge respect in the footballing community for the successes of players like Frank Lampard, Nicolas Anelka and Alex, but there can be no room for sentiment if success is the goal. Roman Ambramovich need only look to Sir Alex Ferguson, still delivering trophies at 70 years of age, 26 years after taking charge at Old Trafford.

     Ferguson has built and rebuilt teams and then rebuilt them again, each time emulating and surpassing the achievements of the previous. In that time many great players have been put to pasture by Sir Alex, knowing that their abilities no longer matched their influence and reputation. Greats of the game have nobly moved on (Bruce, Robson, Cantona) while other legends went less quietly (Keane, Strachan, Beckham). There have been those two who have left for apparently undermining the manager's authority or the direction of the club (Ronaldo, Stam, Strachan, Beckham, Rooney next?). But they have gone. Sir Alex Ferguson remains. Success reigns.

     Both Roman Ambramovich and Andre Villas-Boas know that Chelsea have reached the cusp of change. Their ageing squad needs to be revamped, even if some are dragging their heels and being all to vocal about it. It doesn't happen overnight, Sir Alex will attest to that. It is, to use a footballing cliche, a process of transition; a transition that has already begun at Chelsea and must been seen through to the end. That is why Anelka, Alex and likely Malouda are already on their way out the door, and why Lampard finds his role reduced and many are speculating he will join Beckham or Mourinho elsewhere.

     That Villas-Boas might have been more dignified and offered some credit rather than silence in response to Lampard's goal against Wolves yesterday is a fair assessment; as is the fact that his barring of Nicolas Anelka from the club's Christmas party seemed both personal and mean-spirited. However, he must be resolute, and so must his boss, Mr Ambramovich. After all, how many managers can the Chelsea players blame for their poor form on the pitch? With seven in seven years, and inconsistent success, there is only one constant...the key players, not the manager.

     It seems no surprise at all that stories of AVB's apparently petulant behaviour towards the likes of Lampard and Anelka would surface at a time when they are either set to leave or looking likely to leave the club. For Lampard it is becoming a bitter demise, but Chelsea's directors and fans must not allow their nostalgia or sentimentality disguise the fact that the Stamford Bridge careers of Lampard and others of his vintage are nearing their conclusion. 

     The club must silence this 'player power' and persevere in order regain success. Ambramovich must give AVB the time and support needed to overhaul an unbalanced and inconsistent playing squad and mould it in his own image. Villas-Boas must face down these challenges in the same way that Sir Alex Ferguson has done time and again at Manchester United.

      As the Chelsea players were pictured celebrating Ramires's goal against Wolves with their manager, it was significant to note the presence of the new guard and the absence of the old. There was no Lampard, Terry or Malouda. Instead, a beaming Andre Villas-Boas stood surrounded by many of his own: Romeu, Ramires, Meireles and Luiz.