Grant Shown The Door
Avram Grant was just one slip away from Champions League glory but clearly that wasn’t enough for the Chelsea regime. The club announced that Grant had parted company with the club on Saturday evening, just a few days after the dramatic European final.
It’s not believed that Chelsea have a ready-made replacement lined up, although the club have stated that the search for a new man starts immediately. Guus Hiddink, Frank Rijkaard and Sven are the early favourites to step into the expensive shoes that never really fitted Grant’s feet all that snugly.
It’s likely to be a summer of massive change at Stamford Bridge with some big money flying around. Even at this ridiculously early stage, it looks as though fantasy managers seeking to invest in Chelsea are going to have to take a gamble on a good deal of uncertainty.
I think Chelsea have behaved apallingly by sacking Grant. Ok, the man was not a great manager but certainly a decent one who did well to get Chelsea so close in the Premiership and to beat Liverpool in the Champions League. He has about as much charisma as Gordon Brown (a bit of politics, there!) and looks like an undertaker but he has shown himself to have a quiet dignity in the face of frantic press attention. I suppose you can’t feel sorry for a man who walks away with £5 million+.
As a neutral supporter, the episode leaves a foul taste in the mouth as does Man City’s treatment of Sven.
I hope these teams do less well next season.
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Reply by What? on May 27, 2008 11:04 am:
He only got £5? Mate, Chelsea are a little tight.
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i think he has done great, he has had numerous amount of players injured or at african cup of nations for large parts of the season e.g Lampard Drogba Cech and even Terry for some parts. Without the spine of the team and he has still done reasonably well
good luck avram , hope Abramavic leaves and Chelsea go into financial turmoil and fold , a long shot but hey
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I think you lot are being a tad bit unfair. We all knew Avram Grant was going to be a stop gap till another manager took over from Mourinho…..He did an amazing job (better than anyone would have imagined), but more importantly could not play the type of football Abramovich wants….This summer is going to see an overhaul of the Chelsea squad and if I was going to give a manager that much money I would make sure it was someone who could give me the end result I require…There is no evidence Grant could have done this and as long as the new manager improves the football Chelsea play I doubt he’ll get sacked even if he wins nothing for the first season….I think his tretment has been harsh though, I would have thought an offer to go back to being “Director of football” would have been the right thing for the club to do.
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Reply by Dr Sanchez on May 25, 2008 4:06 pm:
Yeah, you can’t blame Abramovich for wanting to get the right manager. The problem is that he gave Grant a contract, which is why it seems a bit strange that he’s now sacking him. Still, it means that Avram’s quids in.
Whatever happens to you in life, always remember that Drogba got sent off
Yep, still makes me smile.
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Reply by TheNecromancer on May 25, 2008 5:16 pm:
agreed.
i think we all expected him to get sacked. even from over here it seems a bit untoward to blame chelski’s failure on him. if the oligark made 30 percent of the decisions (as claimed on bbc website) shouldn’t he take 30 percent of the blame? hahahaha as if…
cheers,
-TheNecromancer
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scout are u doing one for euro 2008? if not does anyone know any good sites………took a hammering in the prem one, need all the help i can get for this one…lol…..
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premleague did 1 for the world cup, maybe they will do one for euro’s :s
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Second place isn’t good enough in any competition when you are the world’s 5th richest club, any manager taking over now would at least be expected to bring home either the premier league or the champions league, preferably both!
Grant was clearly only a short term appointment because the managers they wanted weren’t available. I’m not sure even winning the champions league would have been enough. He did a mutch better job than I thought he would though, so credit where it’s due. The special one won two back to back league titles, but he didn’t have such an awesome man united team to contend with.
Last year Chelsea were outspent by man united, united bought quality in and Chelsea spent 13m on Malouda or whatever it was, brought in Pizarro and Belletti, all flops arguably. Ballack proved to be the best signing but it wasn’t enough to close the widening gap.
If you believe the papers United have 50m to spend and Chelsea will need to spend at least twice that. I think they need to offload Drogba and Lampard (I say that as a Chelsea fan, it has to be said) and bring in Eto, Kaka, and a couple more.
If Kenyon/Buck want this club to be more popular with the general fan base then Drogba has to be the first to go, he’s wanted off for over a year anyway (and has openly said so in the french press for ages).
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Grant was always an odd choice for the job. One of the wealthiest clubs in the world getting a mostly untested manager.
Grant did nothing at Chelsea, he got Anelka who he paid over the odds for and who has under-performed, other than that he played with Jose Mourinho’s team. The Chelsea players got to the Champions League Final, Grant was just there for the ride.
To be honest any half intelligent football fan could have done as good, if not better than Grant
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Are you doing the Euro Championship Fantasy League?
http://en.fantasy.euro2008.uefa.com/M/home.mc
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Reply by yer dad on May 31, 2008 12:43 am:
I am King Kolo because I will show them overpaid English superstars how to take over Europe.Forget petrol prices, eggs on the increase and hoodies. England without St George flags from our cars this summer is a sad state of affairs and I need to get back some respect for us. Count me in for this battle of Europe. By the way, who is playing??
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Lol nice rant..
Agree btw…
Cool is there a fantasy footy scout league that we can all join?
Btw a belated thx to all involved for the past FPL season.
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Reply by yer dad on June 1, 2008 11:35 pm:
Lets get the ball rolling then and make up a scout picks league, code below. I have ended up with a Turkish forward because I am skint.
Code:56643-10593
Matchday Deadline Transfers
Group Stage 1 7 Jun 18:00 Unlimited
Group Stage 2 11 Jun 18:00 4 transfers
Group Stage 3 15 Jun 20:45 4 transfers
Quarter-finals 19 Jun 20:45 Unlimited
Semi-finals 25 Jun 20:45 Unlimited
Final 29 Jun 20:45 Unlimited
The total value of your group stage squad must not exceed 100 million Euros. For the knock-out stage the team budget will be increased 110 million Euros.
Thought i would give you this bit of of info because i looked for it and wanted to share it. So if Turkey get to the final you can select them all.
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Reply by KingKolo on June 7, 2008 3:50 am:
Nice one pops… im in as TheyThinkItsAllOver
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Is anyone else finding it very very difficult to get a decent team together in the euro game?! Im usually ok budgeting but its come down to having Guttuso in my starting midfield :/ ffs! Anyone else finding the same?
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Reply by higgo on June 2, 2008 8:08 am:
yeah, my “decent” team consists of a swiss and austrian forward. gulp!
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Reply by Havers on June 2, 2008 4:42 pm:
I think you almost have to gamble on leaving out C. Ron to get a decent, balanced team.
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Yes..lol its a very dificult selection process. Anyone got a list of set peice/pen/corner takers?
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Can anyone give me any ideas about my team?
Cech
Heitinga, Zambrotta, Senderos, Gallas
Pirlo, Ribery, Kallstrom, Tuncay
Podolski, Koller, Villa
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my team consists of, nobody. Euro what?
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Reply by puffinboy on June 2, 2008 2:50 pm:
Mine too, but I’ll drop by with asinine comments from time to time if that’s what y’all want.
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