It’s been open season on Chelsea since Sunday’s demonstrations against the appointment of Rafael Benitez at Stamford Bridge. For example, The Times has a one page article today that essentially makes one point: Chelsea fans are not ready to bite the hand that feeds them. Actually, one Chelsea fan did put his head about the parapet on 606 and say that it was time to thank Roman Abramovich for all he had done to rescue the club and ask him to move on.
It’s been open season on Chelsea since Sunday’s demonstrations against the appointment of Rafael Benitez at Stamford Bridge. For example, The Times has a one page article today that essentially makes one point: Chelsea fans are not ready to bite the hand that feeds them. Actually, one Chelsea fan did put his head about the parapet on 606 and say that it was time to thank Roman Abramovich for all he had done to rescue the club and ask him to move on.
Chelsea fans had produced plenty of home made banners on Sunday expressing their views about Benitez in no uncertain terms. You can expect displays of such banners and other anti-Benitez football accessories to continue as long as he’s Chelsea manager.
The Financial Times has even piled into the chorus of criticism, arguing that ‘Football is a funny old management game, but Chelsea’s capricious onwer embodies a combination of short-termism, short temper and short-term memory loss that is extreme even in that curious world.’
Chelsea have not exactly endeared themselves to the world of football recently. Some matters have not been as well handled as they might have been. However, there is something of the ‘cut down the tall poppy’ syndrome in some of the reactions. Abramovich and the fans of Chelsea want success for their club and that is what the fans of every club want.
The question that arises is whether Abramovich is going about it in the right way? The Pink ‘Un argues, ‘the more frequently Mr Abramovich exercises his absolute power, the less likely he is to get a manager with the independence of spirit to work lasting magic with the team – a manager, for example, like Pep Guardiola … a short fuse and hard cash won’t turn Chelsea into Barcelona.’