Firing AVB – A decision to regret

I’ve always been a fan of Andre Villas-Boas and certainly was very disappointed to see him sacked as Chelsea manager. The decision resulted in short-term glory for Chelsea, but ever since the UCL triumph… it’s been a bunch of ups and downs.

The sacking of Roberto Di Matteo and hiring of Rafael Benitez has been catastrophic, not only result wise, but mostly fan wise. Di Matteo is a Chelsea legend in most books and Rafael Benitez is a Liverpool reject (for some). Nonetheless, they are both poor managers in recent times – not getting results, dressing room bust ups, etc. It’s not all there fault as the problem is beyond them – stability. We are successful, but not stable. The sacking of Carlo Ancelotti is the finest examples, but the AVB sacking is the most effective in my mind.

Andre Villas-Boas has shown his qualities in recent months, a world class manager who needs time. Some would argue that he got more time than deserved at Chelsea, but he didn’t last the full season and for me, a season is the least amount of time he deserved. He was a long term manager, one that would be around for 10-15 years and would be Chelsea’s version of SAF (as in long tenure and success). Andre Villas Boas might not of had the most promising of starts and seasons as Chelsea nearly fell out of the CL group stages then faced elimination in the knockout round against Napoli. Whether, AVB would of done what RDM did, is beyond me and you. I don’t know nor do you. It’s simply something we don’t know, but what we do know is that ever since the CL triumph we’ve been ridiculously unstable and inconsistent.

To fire Andre Villas-Boas, for me, was such a stupid decision that laments the idiots we have in charge. The decisions to sack managers have been more and more frequent and the Board/Roman seem quick to pull the trigger on any manager – they know face the biggest crisis in Roman era. The lack of stability and the fan displeasure has led Roman Abrahmovich to look towards Jose Mourinho, the fan favorite as the next manager. However, Mourinho certainly is no permanent solution like AVB was. Andre Villas Boas had exactly what we wanted – a young manager who wanted success. The fact of the matter is, AVB couldn’t overcome the player power that JT, Frank Lampard, etc. possess. This is a huge component in our instability – we have idiots in the board and players who have a lot of control/power on the pitch. AVB doesn’t have either of these problems at Tottenham, so some Chelsea fans would feel that our club would have to go through a “Revolution” (for lack of a better term). A revival, a change for a better Chelsea, but fans and the board were not ready for that as well as these powerful players who wanted to play even if their presence harmed the club more than it did help the club.

Right now, AVB’s Spurs have a 3-0 aggregate lead over Inter Milan in the UEL while we trail Steaua Bucharest 1-0 on aggregate in the same competition. Spurs are 2 points ahead of us for 3rd place and have more success against Top 4 clubs than we do. Spurs have team chemistry and are playing magnificent football, while we struggle with consistency and our team plays like absolute crap some games. The success so far at Tottenham has shown to me why his sacking was a decision that we regret, not just now, but in the future as well. We’ve lost what could of been our Sir Alex Ferguson. Whether you like it or not, we can all agree that Spurs are the hottest team in England and maybe Top 5 in Europe at the moment (in terms of form and consistency). Nonetheless, the decision was definitely one of the worst made under the Roman Abrahmovich era.