Relationship between the Special One and Russian billionaire sours
All is not rosy in the Jose Mourinho garden. Whilst on the surface, his Garden of Eden exhibits a beauty unmatchable by any European equivalent, and despite its sparkling array of floral talent, the Tree of Knowledge has ominously begun to bear its forbidden fruit. The gardener, who has spent the past two years sculpting his masterpiece, and who was once previously labelled, albeit through his own wording, as “The Special One”, has diminished much in stature, and the envious neighbours, who once glued their eyes through the peepholes green with envy, have suddenly turned away for pastures new.
Chelsea Football Club, for the first time in what seems like ages, is a wounded animal. A quick glance at the top of the Premiership, with Manchester United seemingly beginning to saunter away with the title, is perhaps evidence of this.
For the rest of the Premiership, it has been a long time coming. The incredible Chelsea machine that steamrolled itself, rather robotically and with an efficiency previously unmatched in the English Premiership, to two consecutive league titles, had to combust at some stage. The surprising element is that it has done so at the precise point when Chelsea have splashed the cash on world-renowned superstars for the first time – the grandioso names of Andriy Shevchenko and Michael Ballack. However, whilst shirt sales will soar beyond belief, helping Peter Kenyon’s mission for Chelsea to take over the world, Ballack and Shevchenko seem to be unfamiliar with their scripts. Even for a man with divine qualities such as Jose Mourinho, patching Frank Lampard and Michael Ballack, identical players in every way bar the haircut, into the same outfit has proved to be a rather difficult task. Perhaps Ballack’s failure to endear himself to England has only been overshadowed by Shevchenko, who on present form would fail to score in a Soho brothel. Sergei Rebrov will be chuckling himself to sleep.
Yet Mourinho’s greatest mistake has been to eliminate the wings from his formidable, flying outfit which put so many teams to the sword in recent times. The rampaging runs of Messrs Duff, Cole and Robben are what epitomised the explosive Chelsea, the Chelsea that bore wave after wave of torture until the other side could take no more. Whilst the special one is keen to point towards the absence of John Terry and Petr Cech from his team in recent weeks, the £400 million empire he has built must be able to withstand a few body blows. His relationship with the board, and indeed his sugar-daddy Abrahamovich, has also deteriorated, to an extent where even Roman seems to have mastered the age-old art of “saving.” If this is the case, “privacy” is certainly found wanting in the Russian’s vocabulary. His disputes with Mourinho should have been firmly resolved at home, not aired so spectacularly in a country where the journalists lie like wolves awaiting fresh meat. Despite the cuddly rabbit face, Abrahamovich is proving to be a hard taskmaster.
Perhaps Chelsea will recover from this blip, as those with financial clout often do. But the biggest challenge will be to remain a football club, and not the plc which it is fast becoming. Players are used, crushed and then ejected out the other end (remember Shaun Wright-Phillips?). Many of the current playing staff would do well to consider how their careers may have differed had they been playing more regularly. But money is a sweet lubricator. The anti-Chelsea brigade who anxiously await the death of Chelsea Football Club through the end of a Russian sniper’s rifle aimed precariously at Abrahamovich’s head, may receive an early yet pleasant surprise. Indeed the defeat at Liverpool can be put down to the loss of John Terry but it has often been the case that when outside problems affect a club, the results are often seen on the pitch.
Ashok Patel
Superb account of the state of affairs at Chelsea. Tarun has the makings of a great Sports writer.