Dear TrueBlueFusion – I’ve chosen to respond to you through this post (others can click this link to read TBF’s comment#35 before reading this article). My intention is not to convince you but just to convey what I feel and what my answers are to your questions. I’ve already conveyed these opinions in one or more earlier posts as well. I’m sorry if it aches your eyes because this is longer than a long post of your imagination. 2000+ words for your 600+ words. So, pick up that coffee, sit back and relax.

Let me start with a question. Who is more beautiful – Angelina Jolie or Catherine Zeta Jones? We don’t need an opinion poll to prove that people’s votes are going to be divided here. Why? Why is that people don’t unanimously agree on who is more beautiful? They won’t because it is impossible. So, if you think Angelina is more beautiful, you’ll buy a poster of her and probably won’t ask me why I’ve bought Zeta Jones pin-up when you consider Angelina more beautiful. Would you? Opinions, preferences and subjectivity are the essences of this post. Read on.

The papers conveniently say that Roman sacked Jose because of the style of football. I simply don’t believe this. Roman had an ego clash with Jose, and being the less powerful guy in the organisation, Jose had to leave. Other than that, rest everything is unconfirmed. If you believe the stories that Roman sacked Jose for the style of football, then I’d also ask you to believe the Guardian story that details how Roman started ruining Jose’s freedom from 2006 onwards. So, let’s not go into that. They had a spat, and Roman did to Jose what any billionaire would do when they are challenged or questioned back.

By the way, hope you know this thing about Ronaldinho dating Rijkaard’s daughter. And that’s supposed to be the reason for the fallout between Rijkaard and Ronaldinho. Not always, all decisions in football are taken for footballing reasons. They are all just humans like us and have all those emotions that we have. Jose could have rubbed Roman on the wrong side or vice versa and that could have caused the split.

Give it a thought. When Roman bought Chelsea and decided to replace Ranieri, he must have had so many options. He had all the money to pick any of those legendary managers. As a businessman, he would have made his due diligence and background check thoroughly. Why did he choose Jose Mourinho? He must have been inspired and impressed by Porto’s style or success? If he was impressed by style, it was Chelsea who stunned English football and left the country speechless. If he was impressed by success, he was delivered back-to-back titles and only thing that was eluding was the champions league. So where’s the problem here?I genuinely believe that Roman has been intervening in Jose’s business and freedom. That’s my view.

If at all he wanted a different style of football, Roman should not have sacked Jose 6 games into the new season. That was simply not enough time. After a wrecked last season, we were just getting back our players. More than the quality of players, what matters is, as much as possible, the same set of players playing every weekend. Any set of 11 players playing alongside each other over long periods of time, are going to develop that understanding among them and that would help their passing and movements. If Avram is going to be given enough time to go back to our title winning playing style, that time could have been given to Jose as well. If Avram is not going to be given time, then there is no margin of error to Avram and he would be criticised if he does not win the title this season.

Magazines sell more copies when they write about how undeserving Chelsea is and that they do not play beautiful football. That’s business prudence. When 90% of your customers are supporting Liverpool, Man Utd and Arsenal, and Chelsea comes in and threatens them big time, you sell more copies ridiculing Chelsea, don’t you? How did Arsenal reach the champions league final in 05-06? By playing a combination of completely defensive football and well organised football, even with their complete team. But no one was making a noise about how they played. That’s about the propaganda. If you’re telling me that we don’t play beautiful football, I’m sorry. We’re never going to agree on this one. Read the first paragraph again. I love Chelsea and I love the way they play. I love Chelsea for Chelsea. That said, Chelsea played superb football in 04-05 and 05-06. Period. I don’t care what BBC says or Telegraph says or rival fans say about whether Chelsea plays beautifully or not. Why should I side with them for an opinion when I can make my opinion for myself. Chelsea played amazing football those seasons. Do yourself a favour. Buy the season review DVDs from Chelsea FC for these two seasons. I’ve watched them over and over and over again.

In 06-07, Jose had to opt for a different method – substance over style. It was more to accommodate Sheva and Ballack and also due to those nightmarish series of injuries. In an incredible season of phenomenal bad luck, Chelsea ended up with only 6 points short of the best Man Utd performance of recent times. We always played to win. We never played for a draw. We always attacked until the 90th minutes and even the last second before the referee’s final whistle. What is bad football or boring football in my eyes? When both teams play with no intention to win the game like Porto vs Arsenal match last season (the worst match I have ever seen) or when both teams play poorly, in terms of defending, attacking or midfield play, I call it bad football. Jose was right. When Arsenal beat Spurs 5-4, that was horrid defending from both sides.

Had we won the title for a record third time last season, what would we be talking about Jose? what would the press be saying about Jose? I strongly believe that no other manager would have brought us to No.2 in the table last season. That’s where the brilliance of Jose comes in. See, I’m a chess player myself and I very nearly took up professional chess. I appreciate tactics and strategy in every form. I could see that he was up to something incredible last season and Jose’s tactics and strategy were unbeatable. Jose put tactics over creativity last season because that was the only way we could push Man Utd till the last lap and that was the right decision under those circumstances.

I see nothing wrong in playing the way we did last season. We won more points than 18 other teams and we did not cheat or bribe like AC Milan did. The fact is none of the bigger teams liked to see Chelsea in their league and contending and winning the league title ahead of them. When they couldn’t beat us all these psychological wars about playing style started. If you watch tennis, which one would you choose – baseline tennis or serve and volley tennis, would you like grass court tennis in Wimbledon or clay court tennis in Roland Garros? Baseline tennis lovers hated those big serving players serving and volleying and finishing the service game in 2 minutes. If you can’t beat that or if you have no answer to those booming serves, you can complain all day about how they’re killing the game. I love grass court tennis and serve and volley game than those long rallies on clay courts. But that doesn’t mean I hate clay court tennis. That’s me. I have my own preferences.

There are always more than one way of doing things. If you like method A more than method B, then it’s your preference. Creativity is in no way superior to tactics or vice versa. One likes creativity, another likes tactics, some other likes both in different proportions. It’s all what you like. I simply love tactical battles and outmaneuvering the opponent by thinking one step ahead of him. I would enjoy someone like Ronaldinho or Kaka being neutralised by brilliant tactics as much as Ronnie or Kaka performing those tricks. As a person, that’s what suits me. I’ve mentioned here before too. Even when I play Pro Evo on XBOX, my style of football is more on tactical soundness than 360 degree flicks. I loved Chelsea’s football of 06-07 (I have the DVD of this too!) as much as I loved the earlier two seasons under Jose.

So, if you like watching Barca more than Chelsea, please do. Remember, this was the same Barca that could not beat Chelsea in a 11 vs 11 match. This was the same Barca that was torn to pieces in two out of three seasons. I’m not taking anything away from Barca but I always believed that English teams defend and tackle a lot better than the Spanish teams. Deco is better than Lampard? Before answering this question, define ‘better’. If it’s about skills, Deco is better. If it’s about contribution, Lampard is better. If it’s about scoring / assisting, Lampard is better. If it’s about professionalism, Lampard is better. So which ‘better’ are we talking about here? And which ‘better’ is more important than the rest? You consider Deco to be better than Lampard. Fine. I respect your opinion.

And, let’s not go into the balance sheet part. Being a qualified professional accountant (a chartered accountant, to be exact), I know why and how profit figures can be misleading in accounting. Chelsea would make more losses and that’s natural because of the money spent in the initial seasons. Wenger has been in Arsenal for 10 years. Give the same number of years to any good coach, they’ll win more than 5 trophies and profits will be realised. I respect Arsene but he must be really lucky to be given all the time in the world to do what he wants to do. And that’s how he could win 5 trophies in 10 years and still signing an extension. Whereas the Blue Revolution started by Roman, Kenyon and Jose is on a fast track. Success, growth and fan base – we wanted all this as soon as possible. And we did get this all in the last three seasons.

Abraham Maslow. Ever heard of this name? Otherwise, read more here. He propounded this ‘theory of hierarchy’ where he says the human mind starts craving for more and more as its desires are fulfilled. In simple terms, when you don’t have a job, you’d give anything to get a job. When you get a job, you’d expect a good raise. When you get the raise, you’d expect a promotion. When you’re promoted, you’d want more and more people under you and so on. When you compare Chelsea with the other clubs that we are currently competing with, we are at the basic level of desire, that is to win trophies. And we’re not done yet. It’s just two seasons and many clubs have fallen in obscurity after winning one or two titles. We should win more and more to position ourselves very strongly and then risk something else. You can play with freedom and creativity and win trophies too but it takes time and who knows what happens with time? May be Jose was way ahead of time and delivered the titles much before Roman expected and that’s given Roman some time to play around with other options.

All said, I have utmost respect for what Roman has done to the club. As the owner of the club, he has every right to hire or fire his staff. We don’t have to always agree with every decision he takes just because he is the billionaire owner of the club. When I started watching some serious football, I was a neutral. That was the time Arsenal was still continuing their unbeaten run with a great team. As a neutral, I fell in love with Chelsea. So you have the answer here. Why I liked Chelsea and not any other club? Well, that’s what you call chemistry. In simple terms, I liked them in whatever they did and however they did.

Finally, to summarise, to put it very simply, as a Chelsea fan, I want my team to win and Jose made that happen with incredible regularity. If anyone else is able to equal him or better him, I’ll embrace him with my arms wide open.