We have talked about players confidence, trust and respect on Avram Grant. This outburst by Tal Ben Haim on Avram Grant could just be the tip of the iceberg.

Tal Ben Haim had said:

José Mourinho is the reason I came to Chelsea and if I knew Avram Grant was going to be the coach then I would have signed for another club. It was José who brought me here and no one except he and I know the conversation we had when he tried to sign me the first time a year ago last January. The fact is while José was the coach I played most of the games and people who know me know that I would not have come here to be a reserve. I knew that nothing good would come with Grant as Chelsea coach.

See I’m not in favour of playing Ben Haim when he’s not playing well. But the statements made by him go deeper than his own first team chances. He says he would not even have joined Chelsea if he knew Grant was to replace Jose. Finally his statement that he knew “nothing good would come with Grant as Chelsea coach” is a very very strong one. Not sure if he meant nothing good would come to him or nothing good would come to Chelsea. I don’t think it’s the former because he says ‘he knew’. When Grant took over his compatriot should have somewhat fancied his chances right? Now the official Chelsea FC website would come out with a piece that it is a misquoted interview, but that’s their job.

Players do get disappointed when they don’t play but you don’t see players saying to the press that their club won’t get anything good with his current manager. There could be more such players – Shevchenko was improving, Malouda started well and faded off, even Terry, Drogba and Lampard would have few things in their heart but may not really come out and say that. Grant being so uninspirational would make life so difficult especially for the players who are young and also those who have just moved. It’s not just if they are playing, they would also be asking themselves “are we developing, are we improving under this man“.

In a way, Tal could be a brave man in saying this. It was so unnatural to see players not talking about Jose at all and even worse not talking about Avram Grant too. Look at Spurs. See how proud their players are about Juande Ramos. See how proud Man City players are, about their new manager Sven Goran Eriksson. From Chelsea, you don’t hear a thing about how good Avram is. You see only one person talking about Avram’s football and his tactics etc – that’s Avram himself.

A surprise for you. This news even got published in the official chelsea wesbite, in the Russian site. Don’t mind the funny translation by google.

tal.jpg

With all such happenings, Chelsea FC is becoming a laughing stock. From a feared European powerhouse, we are slowly but surely being reduced to a mockable also-rans. Any more players coming in with such stories would be bad for the club in the short run. But if these things tell us some things about how the team is run, how the players are managed, how the preparations are made, how the training and development is conducted, it would be worth taking the nonsense.