Bill Shankly used to say that football clubs were governed by a holy trinity — players, supporters, manager — and that directors did not count because they were “only there to sign the cheques”. At Chelsea the holy trinity consists of players, supporters and owner. The manager is only there to pick the team and it has not always been certain whether he is afforded that right.
Chelsea are a strange club. They could almost be Manchester United in negative. For better, their owner pumps money in rather than sucks it out like a parasite. For worse, that same owner insists on calling the shots, presiding over a structure in which chief executives and finance directors are largely impotent, managers are ushered in and out with indecent haste and the vacuum is filled with cronies while the players’ voices hold far more sway than they should.
Yet somehow, this most unnatural “natural order” works — at least to a degree. This has been their most traumatic season under Abramovich’s ownership but the dismissal of André Villas-Boas has seemingly brought about the resumption of normal service and the resurrection of the old Chelsea. With John Terry, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba respectively fit, trusted and happy again, they have won three games out of three under Roberto Di Matteo’s interim management, having won only four out of Villas-Boas’s final 14.
Wednesday was a glory night at Stamford Bridge as Chelsea, trailing 3-1 from the first leg, overwhelmed Napoli with a gutsy, aggressive, domineering display that was entirely at odds with many of their performances during Villas-Boas’s brief tenure.
It prompted some familiar questions about why this group of players have started to perform only after an unpopular manager was sacked, as was the case after Luiz Felipe Scolari was replaced by Guus Hiddink, another interim, three years ago.
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Plenty has been said in recent weeks about the influence exerted by Terry and others — some of it fair, some of it not. Aside from Wayne Rooney’s ill-advised stunt in the autumn of 2010, you could not imagine a United player urging Sir Alex Ferguson who to bid for, as Terry did when proposing that Chelsea buy Franck Ribéry and David Villa after the 2009 FA Cup Final. Nor is it easy to imagine a United player looking like a manager-in-waiting by barking instructions from the touchline, as Terry did while next to Di Matteo after his substitution during extra time against Napoli.
Ideas above their station? Eddie Newton, the former Chelsea player who has returned to the club to work with Di Matteo on the coaching staff, insists not. “They’re a great bunch of lads,” Newton said. “They get a bad rap every so often, but they’re a great bunch of lads and they pulled together, every single one of them.
“They’re human beings. They’re expected to be at the highest level and it hasn’t been that way, so obviously they were going to be a bit low. It wasn’t nice before I stepped in, so there is a certain amount of picking-up to do. Any coach around the country will have to do that at certain points in the season. Chelsea is up in the limelight, so therefore you see it a little bit more.”
Nevertheless, there is a contradiction at the heart of Chelsea. How can a group of such redoubtable, determined characters — Terry, Lampard, Drogba, Petr Cech, Ashley Cole and others — fall victim to the kind of malaise that has swept their dressing room every season since José Mourinho’s departure in 2007? (Even during the Double-winning campaign under Carlo Ancelotti two years ago, there were two periods of self-doubt, one win in seven games in December and four defeats in eight in February and March.) The private view from within the dressing room was that Villas-Boas “tried to take the Chelsea out of Chelsea” and, in doing so, deflated spirits so far that performances suffered. Morale in the workplace should not, in an ideal world, affect footballers’ performances, but it does, perhaps more so at a club where the aforementioned vacuum creates a culture of self-preservation.
Why are performances so much better now that Villas-Boas has gone? “It’s difficult to answer,” Branislav Ivanovic, who scored the winning goal against Napoli, said. “It’s not about who is the boss. It’s just something that is new and you try to change everything in the season. The same thing happened when Scolari left the club.”
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Put simply, Chelsea are at their best when they revert to what they know. Whether it has been Mourinho, Avram Grant, Scolari, Hiddink, Ancelotti or Villas-Boas in charge, few of their best performances, even in the past couple of years, have come with anything far removed from the old Mourinho blueprint. The tactical plan can be tweaked — Di Matteo went for a 4-2-3-1 against Napoli — but the core personnel and values on Wednesday were the same as they ever were.
Lampard spoke about the “invaluable” experience of the older players. He is right. He, Terry, Cole and Drogba remain, even at this stage of their careers, as fundamental to Chelsea’s hopes as ever. David Luiz had perhaps his best night for Chelsea on Wednesday, but, as much as the change in manager seems to have liberated others, he appears to have been stabilised by the return of Terry alongside him.
Di Matteo deserves credit, not only for lifting the mood but for his substitutions after Napoli had made the stronger start. But above all he has recognised that, in order to get results, the best thing a Chelsea manager can do is use the autopilot function.
Of course, it does nothing for the long-term regeneration that is needed, but, under Abramovich, no manager is allowed to think long-term. He has created a club where only the present matters. Shankly would not approve, Ferguson would not approve, but Chelsea in the Abramovich era is the kind of club they would struggle to recognise.