"CHELSEA ARE A CONCERN FOR ME!"

Sky Sports pundit Greame Souness has had his say on AVB soon after Marcel Desailly and I will reiterate what I said yesterday, and you can bet your life on this, it's all people will be talking about as far as AVB is concerned as our new manager.

Desailly spoke of the fact that he thought his age would be the issue, this time Souness has stated that the fact he hasn't been in and around top class players or even played the game himself will become a big problem and we should never have sacked Carlo Ancelotti.

He said:

“Chelsea are a concern for me, The new manager and his new [backroom] team are relatively inexperienced. I worry for Chelsea. I just didn't see any sense in getting rid of the previous manager. I thought Ancelotti was a good manager, tried and tested at the highest level.

The guy they have got in now is untried. Being successful in Portugal, where I worked for two years, with Porto, isn’t the biggest of deals. The way they have got it set up there, from the president down, they are more or less guaranteed success every year there.

The guy never played the game, I don't think he's been around top players all his life and he's not got that experience behind him. I know a lot of people will think 'so what' but you've got to be in and around an environment like that to understand what goes on.

Nothing prepares you for management at the highest level. The reason I think Chelsea will have difficulty this year is because he's going to take a year to find out exactly what it's all about in England.

When you look at what they had last year with Ancelotti, he has been around the block many times and won everything as a player and manager. I thought he was a perfect fit for them."

(Source)
Now in response to Souness and his comments, it's like I said yesterday. That may have been part and parcel of being a manager a while ago but football management has moved on since then.

Is there a written rule that has to state that you have to have played the game at the highest level to be able to manage in it and especially in a club of the stature of Chelsea these days?.

I can understand when people talk about experience, especially ex-players but people have to realise that it's important to be able to motivate your players, get the best out of them in whatever situation you are faced with and to keep everyone together. In our first season Carlo Ancelotti managed just that but last season for the most part he never did.

So if we listen to Souness we should have kept hold of Carlo despite the fact that we were totally outplayed in both Champions League games and the final league game against United without having the ability and presence of mind to change something to win us the game.

What Souness needs to remember is that Carlo Ancelotti was brought here to win the Champions League as he said as much in his press conference when he described the competition as the greatest club competition in the world but if anything took us further away from getting anywhere near winning it.

Was it something that "just happened" or was Ancelotti's tactical limits his downfall as we were outplayed by Inter Milan the season before United last time round.

I really do think that football has become about as much mental preparation these days as the technical and physical side of the game and that's why Chelsea have made the decision they have.

Let's hope Mr Souness is made to eat his words this season as I believe he will be!

KTBFFH

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