Quote Of The Day
Jose Mourinho says no to wine; he'll have some bitter instead:
In my philosophy it was a very bad one [season] because in football 'almost' means defeat and Chelsea almost won the Carling Cup, almost won the Champions League and almost won the Premier League. Almost is nothing. After two titles per season for the last three years there were zero titles this season, which in my philosophy means a really bad season. Maybe in the philosophy of a loser this was a great season, which I respect.Oh, and by the way, Roman just gifted him a limited edition Ferrari worth more than 2 million Pounds.
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"Maybe in the philosophy of a loser this was a great season, which I respect."
HAHAHAHAHA! He's such an ass.
ah the cuntish yet immensely amusing Mourinho.
Apparently Mancini's lined up, which wouldn't be a bad thing considering he's distinctly average.
Rijkaard too. Which leads me to ask, since you're a Barca fan, is he a great manager?
My opinion based on my admittedly less than considering viewing of Barca is that he's lacking in the tactical department. His signings too haven't been the most astute and maybe he's not a great man-manager (though that may be down to Ronaldinho and co being utter, utter cunts rather than Rijkaard being poor at handling them).
I think Rijkaard would be fairly but not overwhelmingly successful at Chelsea. Barca's success was predicated upon two things. Rijkaard would find the first at Chelsea but not the second, at least immediately.
First, the Rijkaard-Ten Cate combo played good cop-bad cop with the players. Rijkaard would coddle them and Ten Cate would run them into the ground. Ten Cate, as you well know, is now at Chelsea; indeed his departure was held by many to be the reason Barca floundered this year - Barca retained the good cop without the bad cop cussing the players out. There's no reason their management style shouldn't work again.
However, the second reason for Barca's success makes me leery about the potential of Rijkaard succeeding at Chelsea. And that is that the manager's style meshed perfectly with the players he had. Now of course there is an endogeneity issue here; namely that the manager gets players who can play his style, so there's no reason Chelsea can't do the same. As it stands though, the only guy who even looks like a Rijkaard player is Joe Cole. There's no way Rijkaard will be able to play Rijkaard type open, one-touch football, highly technical football with the personnel currently at Stamford Bridge.
Maybe Zeyd, resident Chelski fan, can pipe in at some point and give us his thoughts.
Anyway, as for the intrinsic quality of Rijkaard as a manager, I think the jury is still out. Time and again this year he refused to sit on a 2-0 lead and either lost 3-2 or 4-2, or drew 2-2 (this happened at least five times in the last 2-3 months of the season from memory alone). Now you could say that's the manager's fault, but surely the players bear some responsibility as well?
All I'll say is that Barca were in shambles before he came, and within 2.5 years at the helm, he'd won La Liga twice and the CL once. The players were high quality, no doubt, but he did a fantastic job with keeping everyone happy (at least until this year) and a fantastic job at replacing key guys who were injured or transferred out.
Hhahahaha at the: ''Maybe in the philosophy...'' line. Classic. Poor Avram Grunt.
It's going to be Hiddink. Rijkaard, from what I've heard, is taking a year off so he seems to be out of the picture. That leaves Mancini and Hiddink and I think Hiddink is the favourite considering that Roman got him the Russian job and that Hiddink hasn't signed his contract extension yet. But that's just my view, who knows, the bookies have slashed the odds of Maureen returning from 20/1 to 8/1. Anything's possible.
Whilst Ten Cate is an important figure and will likely remain at Chelsea, Steve Clarke is really the glue that keeps everything together. He's responsible (under Maureen as well) for the defense and has always been the buffer between player and manager. It helps that he's English and commands the utmost respect from the players.
Clarke will remain, probably Ten Cate too, to be joined by Hiddink.
Considering the acrimonious manner in which Mourinho left Chelsea, I really don't see him returning. Then again money heals everything. The question is, do Chelsea (and Roman) want him back? I personally can't see him adding much more value to that team, or giving Roman the kind of football he craves.
As it is, I thought he was joining Inter - what happened there?
Well, Zeyd, there goes your argument:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/c/chelsea/7419889.stm
Not really dude; how often does an agent say 'my client ain't going anywhere' before the exact opposite happens a week later?
I don't think this rules our either Mancini or Hiddink, but it does make Rijkaard favourite.
I think the longer they wait, the more likely it is that it's going to be Hiddink. If it's Rijkarrd then the announcement should come soon.
Great piece on this:
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/05/27/pride_the_only_barrier_to_mour.html
I personally think Mourinho, as he is wont to do, overplayed his hand. He could have had the Barca job but had a ludicrous list of demands in terms of control, budget, and autonomy that could never be granted at a club like Barca. He could have had the Portugal job but chose to wait, thinking something better would come along. Now there's a fair chance that he remains unemployed at the start of this upcoming season despite actively looking for a job.
How sweet it is.
You've just signed Gerard Pique too :(
And allegedly, his sell-out clause in the Barca contract is 50mil euros, which is a shitload more than we have valued him :@
Class player, will turn into a monster at the club.
Bye Pique :(
Amazing. Mancini's agent makes a u-turn 24 hours after claiming that his client is sticking with Inter.
Looks like Maureen has his italian job after all.
For Chelsea, it could just be Mancini now, but I doubt it. Then again, who knows?
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