bridge views - the thinking fan's chelsea blog

Manager or head coach model? Ancelotti might not be on to a loser at Chelsea

This weekend, Carlo Ancelotti compared his role at Chelsea to that of Ferguson at Man Utd, claiming his role was technical only: he is not the ‘manager’. This has helped kick-start the debate we love so much: should all power be placed in the hands of the manager, or can a more ‘continental’ approach do the job?

In England, the idea of a ‘head coach’ (rather than a manager) system tends to be viewed in the same terms as ditching sterling for the Euro, drinking tea without milk or wearing a hat indoors: unpalatable. Fans, the media and indeed managers in the game tend to cling onto the idea of the traditional English football manager – someone who has ultimate control at the club, from training sessions and nutrition regimes through to player wages and transfers.

Talk on Chelsea chat forums in response to Ancelotti’s comments bears this out: never is anger directed at Abramovich (the man solely responsible for Chelsea moving into the upper echelons of world football) as much as when it is perceived that he has ‘interfered’.

The continuing success of Alex Ferguson, of course, helps to perpetuate the idea that his is the ideal model for achieving success in football. Ferguson, we’re told, has his fingers in all the pies at Man Utd, and has succeeded for twenty years. Surely this is the only recipe for success? Some pundits would have us believe it.

This model has of course worked at other clubs, and certainly still practiced (most commonly at smaller teams). It has worked in other sports too: Clive Woodward, for example, was massively hands-on during his time with the England rugby team, micro-managing every conceivable aspect of squad life.

In contrast, the model of management seen typically as continental European, where the manager’s role is more akin to being a head coach and other figures have a greater influence on club finance and transfer policy, is viewed with deep suspicion and distrust on this side of the channel. As foreign influences on the Premier League – predominantly in the form of owners from overseas – have grown over the last decade, the ‘Director of Football’ has become the focal point for the almost xenophobic assumption that draining of power away from the manager is always a destructive thing.

Looking at this rationally however, the old-school British idea of the god-like football manager is surely well past its sell by date. This is an idea that dates back way past the establishment of the Premier League, when football was an altogether different business. Before the explosion of football in the 80s and 90s, squads were half the size and players were paid £200 a month. It certainly wasn’t an ‘international’ game in the same way, and wasn’t nearly so commercialised.

Against that backdrop, it was far more plausible – and sensible – that one manager co-ordinated everything at a club. The best managers were tacticians and motivators, but were also organisers, pulling together plans for everything from formations to away fixture travel arrangements.

Now, Premier League football teams are commercially geared, multi-national organisations with multi-million pound turnovers. They have squads at every age group and draw on the talents of hundreds of employees. The stakes, too, are much higher: arguably lack of success on the pitch has never come at such a high price in the history of the game.

With all that in mind, having one all-knowing manager co-ordinate all aspects of a club’s activity isn’t really credible or sustainable. The so-called continental model of having a Director of Football figure acting as a make-weight between the ‘manager’ and a club’s hierarchy – a figure who can blend technical with business understanding – isn’t such a ludicrous proposition. Naturally it’s horses for courses but, for some clubs, a system that balances power slightly upwards and away from the manager is perfect, as demonstrated by some of Europe’s most successful clubs for decades.

The key thing here, of course, is the balance. Even under such a system, the manager should be the most important person at the football club, given the freedom to develop and execute a vision for the team. A big part of that should be the hierarchy empowering him to deliver on that vision, providing a kind of ‘sense check’ from both a sporting and business perspective and constructing the parameters within which he should work.

And this is where it’s going wrong at Chelsea: that balance hasn’t been correctly struck. That Ancelotti can’t select his right-hand man or, as we are led to believe, isn’t consulted on who that person should be, is just one piece of evidence that suggests the freedom to build on his vision is constricting.

So the system isn’t necessarily a bad one – it can work and we shouldn’t attack it purely out of some old-fashioned notion of how things should be or, worse, how things were done. Chelsea’s problem seems to be that there are too many competing, self-interested visions for the club at its upper reaches that muddy the water. The balance needs to be redressed, and Ancelotti has a job on his hands.

More goals, more wins - Chelsea goal glut part of a more exciting league season

It was a great weekend in the Premier League for Chelsea. Not only did the Blues finally hit top gear to crush Blackburn 5-0, Liverpool took three points off Manchester United while Man City and Arsenal both dropped points having surrendered two goal leads.

Chelsea now sit two points clear at the top of the table with the joint best goal difference and, whilst more difficult games are on the horizon (not least Man Utd next month), things are looking bright. It will probably be a season unlike any other we have seen for a while with the ‘big four’ sides all likely to drop more points along the way, but for now Chelsea fans can enjoy being back at the top.

Looking back over the 96 league games played so far this season, high scoring games like Saturday’s have been a fairly common occurrence (although not all so one sided). There have been 52 home wins and 29 away wins, meaning that just 15 per cent of games so far have ended in a draw. Of those, just three have failed to produce a goal.

In total 287 goals have been scored. That’s just under three per game on average, and approximately half a goal per game more than last season. To put that in context: that’s the equivalent of an extra five goals hitting the net every weekend.

So we might have lost the Best Player in the World™, but it looks like the Premiership has lost none of what has made it the most attractive league on the planet: swashbuckling football at its most exciting.

Sky must be loving it. Regardless, despite their reputation for functional football, Chelsea are certainly playing their part.

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Chelsea make new signing despite FIFA ban - signing young players isn't the devil's work

Well, well, well. Sepp Blatter will have been fuming yesterday as news emerged that not only have Chelsea signed a new young goalkeeper despite their ban from FIFA, but the selling club were actually very happy about it.

It was revealed yesterday that Chelsea have agreed a £2.5m (approximately) deal to bring 6’2” 17 year old goalkeeper Matej Delac to West London from Croatian side Inter Zapresic. Delac will join Jan Sebek, another young goalkeeper who recently moved to Chelsea, as soon as FIFA’s transfer ban has expired.

This is an interesting development even just on face value: the FIFA ban clearly won’t stop Chelsea dipping into the market to buy young players on agreements that bring them to the club on a future date. Arguably the ban might even help Chelsea purchase younger players as smaller clubs will be able to benefit from keeping their player in the short term.

More interesting however is the response of Zapresic’s Director, Branko Laljak, who said this of the deal:

“This transfer will save our club from bankruptcy. We are sure this transfer will help us, as now the whole world will know the name of our club. We are proud that we made a player for one of the biggest clubs in the world”.

Laljak’s comments are certainly a far cry from Lens’ finger-pointing that we heard a fortnight ago, and perfectly illustrate that there is a broader argument to the debate around the trade of younger players that is not currently being discussed in formal circles or the media. In a similar way that I argued two weeks ago that the transfer window is actually a serious restriction of smaller clubs’ ability to do vital pieces of business to protect themselves financially, Laljak’s comments suggest that most smaller clubs can benefit from doing business with giants of the game over their young talent (provided everything is above board, of course) both financially and reputationally. Indeed in Zapresic’s case, the Chelsea deal has saved them from liquidation.

In looking to stop the fair and legitimate movement of young players as has been mooted, FIFA not only delay the best young players from moving to get experience that matches their ability but also to some extent prevent smaller clubs from being completely free to take benefit from the players they have ‘created’. Putting a stop to young players being sold internationally would probably lead to the sort of deal that we have seen between Chelsea and Zapresic becoming commonplace, having far-reaching consequences for scouting and wasted transfer expenditure.

When and how young players can be bought and sold is a complex issue but, if Laljak’s comments prove anything, there’s more to the arguments supporting greater freedom of movement than meets the eye. One thing is certainly clear to me: stopping young players moving clubs isn’t necessarily a positive ambition on its own. 

In the meantime Chelsea have, in a way, defied FIFA. How do you like that, Blatter?

Kakuta plot thickens as the case for Chelsea's defence grows

Having had 24 hours to cool off, I’ve started to look more rationally at Kakuta-gate, and the FIFA transfer ban and fine that have followed. Increasingly it looks like a right old mess, and one from which FIFA themselves shouldn’t be able to extricate their greasy fingerprints. I’ll certainly admit here and now that the club has acted shamefully unethically, and that I’d really like to see it clean up its act. It does look however like Chelsea will be able to make a solid defence.

Roma were handed a two registration period ban for ‘poaching’ Mexes from Auxerre, and this has been cited by some as a fair precedent for FIFA’s punishment of Chelsea. But in reality the cases are very different, as the players had totally different forms of agreement with their previous clubs. It is in the nature of these ‘agreements’ that the rights and wrongs of Chelsea’s actions hinge.

Under French law, no player under 16 can sign a professional contract (this varies from country to country). As such, Kakuta did not have a professional contract with Lens, leading to a grey area in which Chelsea felt he was a free agent and Lens felt they had a valid form of pre-contract agreement. In contrast Mexes had signed a fully professional contract with Auxerre before he moved to Roma.

A quote from Francis Collado, a former Administrative Director at Lens who was involved with the Chelsea-Lens negotiations back in 2007 (I picked this up on the Times’ website), suggests to me that Lens are standing on a somewhat shaky legal footing. Collado is quoted to have said:

“He (Kakuta) wasn't free to go. At 14 we proposed a contract. In effect this was a pre-contract because in France you can't pay a player until he's 16. The contract was registered with the French FA and the French league. At a certain point last year I went to see Peter Kenyon and Frank Arnesen in London. I said to them: 'We cannot just let this player leave. We have a youth development centre to run. That costs money. We invest in it. This boy is a phenomenon. I took the contract to them. I gave them the figures and then they proposed a ridiculous figure. They said they thought they had the right to take him. I told them that I would go to FIFA, that they could be fined and banned from making transfers, but they thought they could get away with this. What has happened is a shame for Chelsea, but they were warned.”

This – along with other news slowly leaking out about the affair – suggests a number of things. Firstly that Chelsea firmly believe, and believed at the time, that they were free to take the player and that he was not under a legally binding contract with Lens as he was a minor. Furthermore, it is thought that Lens’ agreement with the player was actually a ‘training agreement’ – which probably isn’t worth much from a legal perspective. Secondly, Collado’s language itself suggests uncertainties. He flags that Kakuta had a contract registered with the French authorities – but how does that work in an international context? He also says Kakuta’s contract with Lens was a pre-contract ‘in effect’. ‘In effect’ doesn’t suggest faith that it was concrete.

In addition, Collado’s choice of words around having an expensive youth development centre to run and having made investment in a fine player smack of a desperate, emotion-driven bid to rescue some worth from a club product rather than a well-tuned legal argument for the illegality of Chelsea’s actions.

And there’s another twist in the tail. Collado refers in his quote to negotiations between the clubs that took place after Kakuta made his first appearance for Chelsea, during which Chelsea offered compensation that Lens considered ‘ridiculous’. That figure is said to have been around the £750k mark – it is perhaps ironic (and galling) that the fine opposed by FIFA yesterday is pretty much equal to that amount, suggesting that the governing body broadly agrees with Chelsea’s original valuation. It all suggests that Lens were over-reacting: tell-tale signs of a club understandably acting in desperation.

The job of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) will be to distinguish the emotional, ethical arguments from the legal case and come up with a fair judgement based on the law. The differences in contractual law from country to country appear to be playing a key part in all of this, and it is FIFA’s responsibility to create a fair and transparent playing field upon which clubs across borders can do business with each other and players. As it is, they haven’t, and they therefore have a great deal of culpability for this mess. Their throwing the book at Chelsea stinks of hypocrisy, and shutting the gate after the horse has bolted.

It’s also worth pointing out at this stage that Chelsea have made limited or no contribution to the ‘case’ thus far – FIFA processes don’t allow for it – so the official judgement could be a little skewed anyway. Furthermore, the FIFA committee looking at the case was supposedly made up of two French and no English officials. Hardly representative…but I’m not sure I’d expect any different.

Hopefully the CAS will throw out the ban, but uphold fair compensation due to Lens, who I have a great deal of empathy for. From my point of view, with the information currently out there (I stress I’m no expert!) it looks as if the club behaved terribly, but entirely within the law. If all this is proved to be true, this would seem fair punishment.

And here was me thinking the break for international fixtures would leave Chelsea blogs with nothing to talk about…

It’s just transfer psychosis - why have a window anyway?

After three months of intense – and mostly insane - speculation (incidentally, by my calculations Chelsea were linked with buying 39 players this summer), the transfer window finally closed at 5pm on Tuesday. From my perspective Chelsea didn’t do too badly from this summer’s window, but Tuesday’s anticlimactic day of inactivity got me thinking – why have a transfer window anyway?

I can barely remember how transfers happened before the window system was introduced but, of what I do remember, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with the way they were handled. I can half see the appeal of the window – it curtails the ability of the biggest and most wealthy teams from simply buying their way out of trouble and, by implication, prevents smaller clubs from losing their best players at inopportune moments. I suppose too that the window could create excitement and drama – Tuesday’s boredom certainly wasn’t the norm.

But this is, at most, half the story.

At a fundamental level, the transfer window represents a mountainous restriction of trade that would be terrible economic practice anywhere else (just another sign that, despite what we’re told, football isn’t run as a business in the normal sense of the word). I get the sense that – as Paul Fletcher discusses in an interesting piece over on the BBC website – whilst the transfer window helps prevent an ever-widening gap between the haves and have-nots within the Premier League, it serves no such purpose in lower league football

The transfer window prevents Football League clubs from selling players and raising what could be vitally needed funds. These clubs, who might not have the benefit of large and consistent income streams, can’t be fleet of foot in responding to changing financial circumstances, which could seriously restrict their ability to either make steps forward on the pitch or steer clear of emergencies. In his article Paul Fletcher quotes Peterborough Director of football Barry Fry as saying: “To me the inability to sell one of your assets is a restraint of trade. I think it is a disgrace.”

The window has a wider impact, too. Limiting clubs to just four months of buying per year results in a form of transfer psychosis, with periods of over-intensive transfer activity. Prices are forced up as negotiating timescales are so short (we can expect prices for English players to be inflated even further in the coming years as the dual impact of the window and new rules on domestic players come into force), and it breeds panic-buying. Of course, bigger spending means higher ticket prices.

And if, as is the impact of a transfer window system, clubs are worried about not being able to respond to an injury crisis? They buy too many players (again increasing spending which gets passed onto fans), meaning that more players who could potentially be getting minutes on the pitch at a more suitable club further down the chain are sitting warming the bench. Hardly good for football clubs, players or fans.

But I guess it works well for the media. What else would they have to talk about over the summer if not whipping up a frenzy of rumour, gossip and hearsay, emblazoning ‘deadline day’ over the back pages of their newspapers and displaying countdowns on their news channels. And this is just part of the problem - as the endless speculation just adds to the mad frenzy that clubs have to deal with.

Who says having a mid-October transfer sprung on you can’t be exciting anyway? Football needs to start thinking beyond the end of its nose – scrap the window.

Think the transfer window works, or should it be scrapped? Post a comment.

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Platini bewilders again as his reaction to Eduardo punishment reveals an archaic UEFA

Platini yesterday confirmed that UEFA would be reviewing the Eduardo ‘incident’ from Wednesday’s Arsenal v. Celtic game, which could in theory result in a ban for the Croatian. But Platini’s quotes were confusing on many levels – on the one hand he advocates progress, while on the other he rejects it. Through all the confusion, it’s also massively puzzling why UEFA are responding to this one case anyway.

In general, I think retrospective punishments are a good thing. Clearly referees can’t get everything right, and looking back on incidents after matches gives the game a further means of stamping out its worst elements. Too many times bad tackles have gone unpunished, yellow cards that should have been red haven’t been upgraded or wrongful sendings off haven’t been rescinded. Net result – fans don’t get to watch the games they’ve paid to see, and nothing is done about it.

In addition however, football’s governing bodies need to be accountable for errors made by their referees, and retrospective punishments are a very easy way of doing that. Where possible, significant individual oversights (referees can’t see everything) should be ‘corrected’ after the event and refereeing errors should be publically acknowledged, but not vilified. This kind of transparency – so entirely lacking after the Ovrebo disaster back in May – would go some way to healing fans’ metaphorical wounds and improving their faith in the institutions that govern our game. As an aside, it UEFA or the FA want referees to get more respect, making them untouchable rather than answerable is just a rich source of frustration and agitation.

So normally I would be impressed with Platini/ UEFA saying they were prepared to take retrospective action. But the precedent that it sets in this instance, and the implied aim to start applying retrospective punishments for diving across the board, could well be problematic. Yes, if applied properly it would probably help stamp diving out, or at least minimise it, which would be a great thing for the sport. But diving is so common in the modern game that in the short term there would – or should – be huge amounts of bans handed out left, right and centre. Furthermore, it would be very difficult to apply fairly as I suspect that in a vast number of cases it would be hugely difficult to prove definite intent to deceive the referee. The grey areas around diving are more often defined by subjectivity than any other event on the pitch – I’d be interested to see what UEFA’s approach would be.

But there was another reason why Platini’s announcement was unimpressive. Having spoken positively about UEFA reviewing the incident, he then revealed that he had in fact sold us all a dummy. Backing the idea of having two additional assistant referees, one behind each goal-line (which will be trialled in the UEFA Cup), he said: “One day players will give up simulating because referees will see them. For years players have cheated because the referees were not of a good enough quality. I am convinced that if you have referees close by, that will prevent players from simulating and players will take the right decision. I have always said it is better to have more referees than a multiplication of disciplinary procedures”.

Why not more disciplinary procedures? Does it create too much work for a what is a lazy and overly-conservative organisation? I suspect it’s a bit of that, but also because it would be too open an admission that individual referees – as opposed to an off the cuff comment about them collectively - are fallible human beings (for some reason this is something UEFA generally find far too difficult to admit). Even if having more referees is a good idea, having the power to retrospectively give punishments or change decisions would still be a very useful tool in the armoury to make sure the game is played fairly. Why isn’t it a good idea to give yourself more options (or chances) to get the difficult decisions right rather than less?

Fundamentally, this all boils down to the best way to adjudicate the game and, incidentally, having more referees doesn’t necessarily mean all dives (or any other infringements) will be identified anyway. Referees make mistakes now: multiplying the numbers doesn’t rule out the possibility of them making them again. Furthermore, linesmen too often don’t take enough responsibility – does having two more mean they’re more likely to put their flag up? For me, it’s a negative and unimaginative move that avoids tackling the problems that come with the real answer. Combined with other tools – like retrospective rulings - finding a better way to use technology and video replays for fourth officials is the forward thinking option that UEFA really should be investing time and money in. I’ll sure I’ll post on that another time.

Of course, perhaps the strangest thing about all this however is why UEFA have reacted to the last night’s incident at all. What was it about Eduardo’s dive that makes it so much worse than the plethora of dives that we’ve witnessed over the years? What about, for example, the dives by the technique’s finest exponent and European Footballer of the Year, Cristiano Ronaldo, football’s very own Tom Daley? It seems strange that his dives (or those of any other footballer) weren’t deserving of special attention, but Eduardo’s own brand of Platoon mimicry was.

Perhaps it’s because it resulted in a penalty. But then dives have resulted in penalties before. Perhaps it’s because it’s an English club involved. But then that’s happened before. When it comes down to it, UEFA – and it’s esteemed President in particular – are just being as unpredictable and bewildering as ever.

Hooliganism? Dead? It's alive, kicking and costing us our time, money and reputation

There are still countless morons out there using football as an excuse to relieve whatever primal urges tell them to fight, throw bricks, light fires and stab people (and most of them ‘support’ Millwall). Most of us will just be battling with the question ‘why?’, but when events like last night’s at West Ham occur, it’s not just legs, ribs and faces that get a kicking.

Historically of course Chelsea hardly have a clear bill of health when it comes to hooliganism. But aside from a bit of a skirmish outside Fulham Broadway after the 2008 Champions League Final, I’ve haven’t personally witnessed any sign of violence at Stamford Bridge this decade. I suspect the vast majority of fans up and down the country (including Hammers supporters) could say the same thing about their clubs.

The fact that hooliganism has pretty much been stamped out in the UK has probably made us all a little bit more sensitive to events like last night and the worrying eye-witness accounts all the more appealing to a gleeful media. But last night’s events at Upton Park – as has been widely reported in the papers – were genuinely a throwback to the 1980s, where rivalries between clubs far more regularly spilled into violent clashes on the streets.

Of course it is very possible that those causing most of the trouble last night weren’t ‘fans’ with match tickets, rather thugs with some form of club allegiance to Millwall or West Ham who made arrangements before the game to square up outside the ground. Apparently this is still fairly common across a lot of English clubs – that is ‘fans’ making arrangements with each other over the internet and mobile phones to meet up and fight each other – it just so happens that most of the time they manage to ‘miss’ each other, unintentionally or otherwise.

The obvious impact of last night’s violence is plain to see – reports of at least one man in hospital and bloody pictures splashed over our television screens and morning papers. Not to undermine any potential human cost (and there weren’t many of those involved last night), but actually the impact stretches wider than this, and beyond the FA’s knee-jerk reaction of worrying about their 2018 World Cup bid.

The hooliganism hangover from the 1980s means that there is still a large police presence at each Premier League game. Despite the relative lack of trouble, there are still probably 100+ police officers – some of them mounted police – at each home game at Stamford Bridge. And who foots that bill? The clubs - or rather the fans. The cost of policing games, like increasing player wages, is just another cost that gets passed on to fans in the form of higher ticket prices and more costly merchandise. And it’s the fans who have to queue longer to get into and out of the stadium when events like last night’s cause police forces to go into overdrive.

And memories of the 80s are longer than you think. Despite the fact that English football has a great recent record on violence, already this morning non-football fans (in my office at least) are remembering what they really think about football: that it’s a working class game watched by hooligans. It doesn’t matter who it’s watched by – and it’s truly a game for everyone – very quickly football supporters can get tarred with the same brush.

And, as the FA fear, it won’t take much for the worldwide football community to jump to the same conclusion either (English football being the flavour of the month with UEFA and FIFA ‘n’ all that). Despite the terrible records of Italian and German fans in particular, which go strangely overlooked, it will only take a couple of events like last night’s for English football’s reputation to be dragged back to the dark ages, where last night’s idiots belong.

The REAL reasons why having Bolton as Chelsea's feeder club is a bad idea

An interesting piece by Martin Samuel on Monday raised the realistic prospect of Premier League clubs making formal arrangements whereby the smaller outfit provides feeder club-like services to the bigger club.

According to Samuel, Karen Brady, Birmingham’s lippy Chief Executive, was heard talking about the idea following a recent meeting of Premier League clubs. Brady said: “There was a chat about feeder clubs inside the Premier League, so one day links between Chelsea and Bolton may be official”.

As you’d expect of Martin Samuel (but not necessarily of the Mail), his article does raise a number of intelligent points on why such arrangements would be a bad idea. He argues that it would set an alarming precedent and that the dependency created would, in theory, reduce the aspirations of the feeder club to zero and diminish the excitement of that club’s fans. He also points to the potential for corruption, along the way making the obvious point that the current loan system has exactly the same effect.

Now don’t get me wrong, I would very much be against the bigger clubs sealing these kind of arrangements with teams in the same league, and I really don’t think there’s a chance of it happening. The corruption point is the absolute killer, but I think the overt nature of the relationship would make concrete the sub-divisions within the league and would help perpetuate a situation where, in general, the bigger clubs are invulnerable to challenge from below. This can’t be good for the game, and is one of the reasons why Chelsea and Manchester City coming into money in recent years has to be a good thing.

But I also think Samuel’s reaction is a little disproportionate. Why should we be so much more happy with PSV (effectively), for example, being our feeder club than Bolton? How do PSV fans feel about that? Doesn’t that relegate them to perpetual footballing servitude to the Chelsea ‘man’? Yes, Chelsea play football in the English Premier League, but we are also part of a wider European (and global) game, and I suspect that what affects one club affects others further afield in a more direct way than ever before.

Samuel also assumes that becoming a feeder club is a one way street – an arrangement that only benefits the bigger partner. He neatly sidesteps the fact that smaller clubs aren’t forced into such deals – they operate in a market and make the decisions based on potential reward. Most frequently they receive lucrative financial reward, either in the form of cash payments or friendly games, and also first option on loaning players to provide them with short-term and cheap access to good players. One can only assume that, if Gartside really is in favour of a partnership with Chelsea, he believes Bolton would benefit. Otherwise he really wouldn’t be doing his job. 

Of course, there are other, Chelsea-focused arguments against the Bolton link-up though. For example, do we really think Bolton’s brand of – hardly samba-style – football is a suitable hotbed for creating Chelsea’s young talent of the future? And do they have any record of producing youngsters? I forget the last Bolton player to go on to play for Real Madrid…

And what happens to our arrangement with West Ham? Won’t they feel like their position as our (and England’s) primary feeder club is being undermined?

Finally, maybe there are better club partnerships Chelsea could consider? Now let me see, what would the criteria for a perfect feeder club be? We’re looking for a club with a good youth record. One with falling expectations as hopes of success fade. They should also play competitive-ish football and have a manager under no pressure to deliver success who is willing to give youth a chance. Methinks there’s an option closer to home…

Have an opinion on the potential for Premier League feeder clubs? Post a comment!

Which was the ‘top’ team of the last 25 years?

It’s clearly a subjective question. Does ‘top’ mean the most attractive to watch? The most effective? The side that scored the most goals or won the most silverware? Reading an article on their website today, it seems the Times has its own definition.

Oliver Kay has Arsenal’s Invincibles (2001-04) as the ‘top’ team, followed by United’s side playing between 06 and 09. Chelsea’s back-to-back winning team of 04-09 (he misguidedly thinks we have the same team now) comes in just third.

But by my definition, the ‘top’ side means the best side. The side that was most adept at fulfilling the aims of football, namely to score goals, not concede any and win matches. And let’s remind ourselves that in the 03/04 season – the season of the so-called Invincibles, Arsenal won the league with 90 points having scored 73 goals and conceded 26. Just one year later, Chelsea won the league for only the second time in their history racking up five more points than Arsenal had while scoring only one less goal and conceding nine less at the other end. Just one solitary defeat – a rather unfortunate one nil loss to Man City, if I recall – blots the record book.

And let’s not forget the Champions League quarter-final either, in which the unbeatable Invincibles came a cropper.

Of course even I – a very blinkered Chelsea fan – can see that looking at the league table doesn’t show the whole story. That Arsenal side were obviously great to watch and Henry (however much we hate him) was at his very best. But the accusations of an over-efficient approach to football and buying the league hide the fact that there was plenty to marvel at in Mourinho’s 04/05 side. The defence was the greatest that has ever played the game in this country, Lampard was hitting the form that would see him win international accolades, and the combination of Duff and Robben was playing fast-paced – and very entertaining – havoc with all comers.

Arsenal’s side broke one record – albeit a massively impressive one. But the Chelsea side of 04/05 side ripped the record book up completely, and then cruised to the league title in second gear the next season, posting a points total only one other side has ever managed.

For me, there’s no competition. But defending well isn’t seen as an ‘art’ worthy of mention by most, and the way Chelsea burst onto the world scene with Abramovich’s money has counted against the blues in the reputation stakes. In twenty-five years time however – when the dust has settled and the heat of current anti-Chelsea rivalry has dimmed, perhaps memories will paint a different picture.

Which has been your 'top' side of the last 25 years? Post a comment…

The true cost of supporting Chelsea

Putting the ‘cost’ of going out of the Champions League in the 93rd minute of the semi final second leg aside, being a Chelsea fan can be an expensive pursuit.

Chelsea’s opening game against Hull is only two weeks away – and we better get saving. Research from the Football Fans Census shows that matchday at Stamford Bridge is more expensive for fans of the West London club than for any other in the capital (and probably the country). Their fans survey revealed that the average home game costed each individual Chelsea fan a staggering £102 in 2008 – an amount comparing very unfavourably to our rivals (Arsenal - £92, Spurs - £84, West Ham - £81). When you consider that getting a quick pint before the game typically involves going to a bar on either the King’s Road or the Fulham Road however, it isn’t perhaps that surprising. A little different from the pubs near Plaistow tube…

It does seem preposterous that the average fine might spend £1,900 each season to watch their team play (assuming they only go to home league games of course) – but perhaps it’s better value for money than it looks.

Buying tickets clearly accounts for a large proportion of fans’ expenditure, and on that front Chelsea unfairly have a reputation for exorbitant prices. The cheapest season ticket, for a seat in the Matthew Harding stand – costs ‘just’ £635 for the 09/10 season, and prices have been frozen for the past four years. By comparison, to help shoulder the financial burden of the Emirates, Arsenal fans pay by far the most in the league for the pleasure of watching their team come fourth with their tickets ranging from £855 to £1,825 (kindly the Arsenal board don’t seem to have passed on this year’s VAT cut to their supporters either – how nice of them). A cheap seat at White Hart Lane will cost you pretty much the same as at Stamford Bridge, but those wanting to pay top dollar will shell out £1,640, some £500 more than at Chelsea.

All of those prices, of course, don’t compare well to those charged by most other clubs in the Premier League – and the bottom line is that, to the majority, such amounts take considerable chunks of monthly income. But if you compare the success that London’s biggest rivals have delivered (as opposed to entertainment on the field, which I’ll neatly sidestep), you’ll find that Chelsea offers the best value for money, charging £7.65 per point during 08/09, compared to £11.88 at Arsenal and £12.20 at Spurs.

And for that money you get to watch Lampard, Terry, Essien, Ballack, Drobga and Joe Cole play. Not too bad at all.   

The same Football Fans Census survey suggested that 5% of Chelsea supporters would not renew their season ticket because of the cost, and a further 20% would go to less games. Are ticket prices in football too high? Post a comment.

Sepp Blatter: The Most Hypocritical Man in Football?

In the light of Blatter's recent remarks trying to rationalise Ronaldo's ridiculous-money move to Real Madrid, I thought it might be worth taking a quick tour through his career to see what other craziness I could find.  And the answer was: quite a lot...

1998 and 2002:  Allegations abound that Blatter is bribing officials to vote for him in the FIFA presidential elections.

2002:  FIFA's secretary-general Michael Zen-Ruffinendrew up a dossier outlining allegations of financial mismanagement within the organisation.  The dossier alleged that the collapse of FIFA's marketing partner ISL had led to losses of up to $100M under Blatter's management.  No action was taken by the Swiss authorities, and an internal investigation within FIFA was halted by Blatter, seen by many as proof of his guilt. Zen-Ruffinen was later removed from office by Blatter, and the ISL Director (a good friend of Blatter's) was convicted of embezzlement.

2004:  Blatter's 'Silver Goal' rule was used for the first time in International competition, helping Greece to beat Cech and the Czech Republic in the European Championships semi-final.  The rule has subsequently been dropped.  Other great Blatter rule-changes include the mandate that national associations must enforce player suspensions even if video evidence shows the referee made a bad call (the FA happily ignore that one), and that players who are over-zealous in their goal celebrations should be booked.

Later on in 2004, Blatter commented that women footballers might want to think about wearing tighter shorts to create a female aesthetic.  He's also expressed his surprise that there aren't more openly gay footballers, pointing to the example of women's football: "homosexuality is popular there".

2007:  Blatter decrees that football matches shouldn't be played above 2,500m.  All very well unless you're Bolivia, whose national stadium was rendered useless.  As with many of Blatter's edicts, this decision has since been reversed.

2008/2009:  Blatter criticises Man Utd for not allowing Ronaldo to move in 2008, claiming that this makes Ronaldo a 'slave'.  Obviously the facts that (a) he had willingly signed a contract, and (b) was being paid millions of dollars had passed Blatter by.  This year he sought to legitimise Madrid's £80M purchase by comparing Ronaldo to Picasso, and the size of the bid by saying it merely reflected the health of the football transfer market.  Why no criticism of all the money being spent?  Oh that's right, he's a Real Madrid fan.

Blatter has also taken the opportunity to have a pop at the English dominance of the Champions League.  Confused?  You should be.  English clubs have only won the Champions League three times since its re-launch in 1992, the same as the Italians and fewer than the Spanish.  Whilst waffling on about excessive money in English football, Blatter has overseen the spend of £120M on FIFA headquarters (making Wembley look like a bargain), allowed FIFA officials a daily expense rate of €500 (no receipts required), and spent only £5Mbuilding football centres in Africa.  Way to go, Sepp.

Think I've missed anything?  Or that I've given Blatter too much stick, and that he's actually good for the game?  Post a comment.

Real Madrid Strike Again...

...Only this time it's not in the transfer market.  In a big weekend for sport (Wimbledon, Lions, Tour de France and Ashes warm-ups), Florentino Perez did his bit to keep football on the front pages of the sports pages by demanding a change to the current Champions League format.  He's asked for a new format that guarantees 16 big clubs a place in the competition - however they perform in their domestic league, and that ensures the big clubs will consistently play each other (rather than minnows from across Europe).  He has indicated he will push for a breakaway "closed shop competition" if UEFA refuse to consider his proposal, and has commented that he hopes his format can be implemented "without abandoning the national leagues".

To Perez's way of thinking, the big clubs that would quialify for this special treatment are: Madrid, Barcelona, Atletico Madrid, Manchester Utd, Chelsea (phew), Liverpool, Arsenal, Inter, AC Milan, Juventus, Bayern Munich, Lyons, Porto, Celtic, Rangers and Olympiakos.  In some ways a strange list - after all, Madrid have qualified for the CL in each of the past 12 seasons without any special favours, and Celtic and Rangers have rarely had to beat off strong Scottish competition for their places in the competition.  Are Madrid in such a bad financial place that they need guaranteed Champions League places, and guaranteed revenue from huge games?  And who made Perez God anyway?

It seems unlikely that this will go ahead so there's little need to worry about it right now, but my gut instinct is that this is truly terrible idea.  You can either view it as a pointless endeavour to set in stone something that's already pretty much set in stone, or much worse, as an attempt to maintain the current status quo into the future and forever more.  If we'd completed an exercise like this just ten years ago, Chelsea certainly wouldn't be in the list, and Ajax probably would be.  This wouldn't have been good for Chelsea, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be good for football either.  Whatever level you play at, football is about dreams.  The dream of beating your greatest rivals, winning a Cup, getting promoted, avoiding relegation, turning over the tournament favourites, or winning the league.  If we fix the list of those who get to play, without any room for change, we take away the chance to dream, and that would be the end of the football as we know it.

Are Chelsea preparing for 6+5?

The transfer gossip linking Chelsea with the biggest players in world football has gone quiet over the past week or so. Dull, dull, dull.

We do need one or two choice additions but it’s not time to get worried just yet – the transfer window isn’t even formally open. Let’s see who Abramovich, Kenyon and Ancelotti rustle up in the next few weeks.

In the last week however, Chelsea have been linked with a few lower profile players. Firstly Sturridge, whose move on a free transfer (ish) from Manchester City seems to be all but done. Secondly we’ve been linked with Charlton playmaker Jonjo Shelvey – just 17 years of age and supposedly one of the hottest prospects in the country (see how Sky Sports reviewed him here). Finally, Ross Turnbull, the Middlesborough goalkeeper. From what I remember, Turnbull has been at a number of clubs (mostly on loan) before finally deciding to leave Middlesborough this summer. At 24, he’s still very young for a goalkeeper.

Clearly at least two of these deals are still to go through, but two thoughts immediately occur: one, that Chelsea do finally seem to be making their threat to buy for the future look genuine; and two, that they’re looking at English players.

New Champions League rules introduced last season placed new restrictions on the number of foreign players that could be named in each squad, so perhaps ‘buying English’ is merely the club’s attempt to give us as many options as possible in that competition. But the rumours also left me wondering if Chelsea are also preparing for the possibility that UEFA and FIFA will somehow get their way on 6+5, and are buying English players that could stay at the club whilst the new rules are being rolled out over the first half of the next decade. I’ll write more on the 6+5 debate over the next week or so, but fingers crossed these transfers aren’t being made now because the club know something we don’t on the issue.

On the other hand, many see having an English core as a desirable thing and the club might be looking ahead to a time when Terry, Lampard and the Coles have retired. Whatever the motivation though, I’m almost more encouraged that Chelsea are being linked with these type of players than I was a few weeks ago and the string of outside-bet, big money transfer rumours.

Know more about what we might expect from these three players if they joined than me? Have a different view on our supposed transfer targets? Post a comment.

UEFA’s attitude is the real disgrace

In response to UEFA’s ruling yesterday, I posted on how the club should seek to turn the situation to its advantage.

This is all a very contentious issue. For all Chelsea fans – me included – the injustice of that evening still burns bright. Drogba called Ovrebo’s performance ‘a disgrace’. It was. But turning to look at the bigger picture, the real disgrace is UEFA’s attitude in their running of the game. There has been no public admission that the referee’s performance was sub-standard and no hint that it has (or will) come under review. Which of us, in whatever walk of life, could make mistakes on that scale without serious repercussions?

UEFA is a strange, confused kind of organisation. On the one hand, it seeks to be the stern ruling body of football. Trouble with this is, they accept no accountability for their (or their referees’) actions and punish anyone who dares to criticise them – a very dictatorial style of government.

On the other hand, UEFA sees itself as the ‘protector of the game’, as embodied by the ongoing public ramblings of Platini. But much of this they get wrong. For the UEFA chief to be publically backing teams ahead of the biggest games of the season is misplaced favouritism on an epic scale. Imagine what the reaction would be if, in recent times, Gordon Brown or Barack Obama had publically discussed a private hope that a certain bank would survive the recession because it employed the people wearing the most colour co-ordinated ties and working in the mot stylish offices? Any governing body – whether of a country, profession or sport – must first and foremost be objective if it is ever to gain lasting respect. Unfortunately, and unlike politicians and their governments, there is no comeback against UEFA.

Where am I going with this? In essence, it’s a simple point: there must be parity in football. If UEFA scrutinise clubs like Chelsea for their actions, they should accept a level of scrutiny of their own. They should be an accountable body, open and willing to look at failings and challenge itself to improve. Perhaps a UEFA statement on a review of Ovrebo’s performance will be forthcoming. But I wouldn’t bet on it.

As a final point: most crucially, UEFA’s lack of accountability spits in the face of football fans. When Chelsea went out of the Champions League to that late Iniesta goal, it was after a 12 game campaign that saw Blues fans watching 18 hours of football. Supporters going to all the home games would have paid at least £300 (plus programme, food and travel costs). It is an investment of time, money and emotion that was made redundant by a single inept performance of a referee. UEFA would do well to not take that so lightly.

Have a view on this? Post a comment.

UEFA’s punishment of Chelsea: is the club’s response the real issue now?

Much will be written today and tomorrow about the punishments doled out to Didier Drogba, Jose Bosingwa and Chelsea by UEFA following the second leg semi final tie against Barcelona in May.

For those that haven’t seen it yet, Drogba has been handed a six match ban (with two of those deferred for a probationary period of two years) and Bosingwa has been banned for two matches (with one of those deferred). Chelsea itself has been fined £85,000.

I suspect that journalists, commentators and fans of all clubs will be divided on whether the punishments are too severe or not severe enough. I’ll leave the intricacies of that debate to other blogs until tomorrow, but my initial reaction is that Drogba’s punishment could have been worse, Bosingwa’s is harsh and £85k is a drop in the ocean to Chelsea.

What I would like to raise briefly is a separate but related issue about Chelsea’s typical response to criticism or controversy. Whether you care about it or not, it our club has a poor external reputation - disliked by UEFA and the refereeing fraternity and seemingly lacking in admirers from other impartial football fans.

This poor reputation stems from Abramovich’s wealth, the club’s recent success, accusations of players diving, our behaviour in the transfer market and of course the antics of people like Didier Drogba. But it also comes from the club’s ‘voice’ – our official responses to developments such as which we’ve seen today – which is regularly aggressive and rarely showing sign of humility or remorse. We’ve seen it on the pitch, but off it too a poor reputation is costing the club.

Was today’s UEFA announcement an opportunity for Chelsea to start to rebuild our reputation with that organisation, to start providing reasons for Platini to embrace the club rather than shun it (as reprehensible as he is it would be useful to have him onside) and encourage them to stop including clips of Chelsea players diving as case studies on their referee training videos?

It most certainly was – and the club (or rather the club’s publicity machine) missed a trick. The statement issued on the website within twenty minutes of UEFA’s ruling merely suggested that the club is considering it’s response, nothing more. At the very least, the statement on the Chelsea adds absolutely nothing and was entirely needless. Surely anyway the club knew what to expect and could have planned it’s position ahead of time?

The game is lost, an appeal is unlikely to be successful and the reputational pay-off from an alternative response could pay dividends in the long run. Would it have hurt to have immediately reiterated our acknowledgement of some guilt over the whole affair, accepted the judgement and requested an opportunity to move on from the incident? Drogba could even offer 25% of his weekly salary for each game he misses to charity.

The result of such a response? UEFA don’t have any further ‘Chelsea headache’. The newspapers write entirely different headlines in tomorrow’s papers. Rival fans who criticised Drogba for his actions soften their view and perhaps even consider that those actions were rooted in a dire refereeing performance.

Longer term, improving our reputation could have far further reaching impact, helping us both win refereeing decisions on the pitch and fans off it. One can also imagine it would make us a more attractive club for the world’s top players to play for.

Don’t get me wrong: as a Chelsea fan I don’t actually condemn Drogba, Bosingwa or the fans’ actions that night. In the heat of the moment, a big part of me wanted Drogba to thump Ovrebo. There is a time to fight injustice, but what’s done is done, and now thoughts should turn to how we can make the best of a bad situation.

What do you think? Post a comment.

Poor stewards at Wembley put fans’ safety in jeopardy

The most exciting moment in England’s game against Kazakhstan last Saturday might well have been when an over-excited local rushed onto the pitch in the closing moments of the game. After a short, zigzagged burst for freedom, he was brought down with a thump by three rather large men in full camouflage army gear. He was dragged off and probably hasn’t been seen since.

We’ve seen similar incidences at Stamford Bridge (and other grounds around the country) in the stands. Many times over the years away supporters who have parked themselves in amongst Chelsea supporters have cheered away goals, only to find themselves escorted out of the stadium by stewards faster than you could say ‘I say, that was a bit of a foolish move old chap’.

Now of course the Stamford Bridge stewards aren’t dressed in fatigues or brandishing firearms (more typically they hang around looking sheepish in luminous vests) but, like their Kazakh counterparts, they seem to know how to deal with fans that step out of line. In the case of overzealous supporters sitting in the wrong places, these stewards act in the interests of everybody’s safety.

Watching the man getting walked off the pitch via military escort on Saturday, I cast my mind back to Wembley and 25 seconds into last weekend’s FA Cup final, when Saha’s goal sent small pockets of Everton fans sitting misguidedly in the Chelsea end into raptures. Clearly any plan to keep quiet had gone out the window half an hour before as these idiots downed their seventh pint of the afternoon before making a quick dash to be in their seats in time for Abide With Me.

Amidst the quiet as we reeled from conceding so early, we all looked round expecting these fans to be shunted out the ground in the normal fashion. But not one steward moved. A minute later – literally a minute – still no-one had moved. One minute later, tens of Chelsea fans – now obviously having had the time to feel affronted – made their way over to these fans to make their feelings known. Punches were thrown, blood spilt and kids were crying before finally the stewards got involved.

Not being a ground that exclusively hosts one sport or team, I assume the training and job spec for stewards at Wembley are very different from what the stewards and Stamford Bridge experience. But safety of both sets of fans (don’t get me wrong, I’m not condoning the stupidity of sitting in the wrong end or indeed violence against those people) is paramount and the security staff should act more decisively. The FA – sort it out next year, please.