Tuesday 29 May 2012

Chelsea: Why the Unrest


You've just won the FA Cup followed by the Champions League, what do you do next? Do you take a well deserved holiday, possibly prepare for Euro 2012 (or court) and wait for the start of next season, or do you contemplate leaving the club you have just won two trophies for?
Well it seems that a few of these smiling faces are thinking about the latter. There were questions raised over whether Didier Drogba would be a Chelsea player next season even before the final in Munich and the Chelsea hero has already walked out of Stamford Bridge. He looks set on following former team-mate, Nicolas Anelka, by moving to China's Shanghai Shenhua alongside a healthy pay packet.
Fernando Torres may have raised a lot of eyebrows when he turned Blue for £50 million and failed to pay the fee back in terms of performance. But in the last remaining games, the Spaniard had raised his game and scored that famous goal against Barcelona in the semi-final. That even managed to get him called up to Spain squad for the Euros but he still revealed his discontent with the London side.
In an interview with Sky's Spanish correspondent, Guillem Balague, Torres stated that he needs 'the club to tell me what is going to happen and what sort of role I have within the club' before he 'judges whether it is worth it'. Despite coming a few days later insisting he is happy at Chelsea although may be because he has risen up the pecking order now Drogba has left.
Then there's the small matter of a certain interim coach. Roberto Di Matteo has probably been the best Chelsea leader since Jose Mourinho and has given Roman Abramovich his Holy Grail. So it is staggering to see Chelsea stall over wanting to appoint Di Matteo who has apparently turned down a measly one year deal at the club.
Okay, they had a poor season at league level and may have squeezed into the Champions League via the back door. But the fact that they beat Liverpool in the FA Cup and Barcelona followed Bayern Munich (on their home turf) in Europe would surely make any first team player want to stay and progress forward from this.
The only real finger that can be pointed must be at Abramovich and the businessmen sitting around his table. The sacking of Ray Wilkins brought unrest to the team before Frank Lampard, amongst others, uttered words of disappointment with the managerial quality of Andre Villas-Boas. Is it this lack of stability, and non-involvement of the players in these decisions, that are causing the players to feel uncomfortable?
Well it hasn't deterred Eden Hazard, who has since announced he'll be moving to Stamford Bridge, despite no manager in place. Whether this is a wise decision or not will be assessed during the course of next season.

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