I’ve always wondered what I would do in the football season break. It’s usually tough in the initial weeks with all players and managers going on holiday and all that. Then the excitement starts to build in as we look to see who are we shopping for. Here at Chelsea, every other season, we end up shopping not just for the players but also for the managing/coaching staff. This time around, looks like there’s a lot of shopping to do – starting with the manager.

If you believe the betting odds, it’s going to be Guus Hiddink, the football advisor for Roman Abramovich for many years. It’s said that Roman doesn’t trust anyone as much as he trusts Golden Guus. All football decisions taken by Roman are consulted with Guus. He could also be the only guy who may not get a sack from Roman. It’s also rumoured that Guus would take up the role of football director while a new manager would work under his ‘guidance’. Actually, I like this idea. If the role of football director going to exist in Chelsea FC, it’s better that it’s held by someone like Guus who’s closer to the players as well as the owner.

Guus considers himself too old for the manager job at Chelsea. It’s certainly a high pressure job in football today and is lot more demanding than his ‘nothing-to-lose’ type of adventures, including his short stint at Chelsea. If he becomes the football director, the search for manager would still be on. But the question that’s still on my mind is, who would be keen to take up the job of Chelsea manager, which is a thankless job.

It’s not easy being a Chelsea manager. You’ll be paid truckloads of money. You’ll have a great squad to work with. You’ll have world class training facilities. In return, you should show success and progress, plus, you should stay in the good books of the owner. If you don’t tick any of these boxes, you’ll be gone. And you would still be paid a very handsome compensation that even exceeds the salary of some of the top managers. Any manager that joins Chelsea will come in with the knowledge of these things.

The expectations are always clear. In fact, I have a feeling that Chelsea managers would be told, on appointment, the clauses that might trigger a dismissal. Which is why I don’t feel too sorry for Roman-sacked managers – I’m sure they knew what they were getting into. I’m also sure what they knew that they would go out richer even if they didn’t make it. They signed up for it. What they don’t sign up for is the treatment.

There are several versions of how Carlo was sacked. The most popular one in the media is that he was notified in the tunnel that ‘they’ wanted to have a quick word with Carlo. And in a room, in the Goodison Park stadium, he was told that he is being dismissed of his services. Now, this lacks class. In fact, this is pathetic.

No matter what, surely he could have come back to Stamford Bridge and the discussion could have happened there. I don’t know what’s the need to sack him one hour after the final match in an away stadium. That’s completely classless. Whoever thought of this idea deserves imprisonment. Retention or dismissal are footballing decisions but the manner in which they are conveyed is of supreme importance.

This is a man who won out first double in history and has entered our history books for a good reason. There’s certainly a way to treat him. I’m not talking about his sack. I’m talking about the manner in which he got to know it. It’s these things that bring the club to disrepute. It’s not the sacking in itself, it’s the manner of the communicating it. Our PR has caused us more disrepute than our footballing decisions. It’s not just a matter of our reputation. Firstly, it’s a matter of treating the man in a dignified manner. That’s the least a football club can do to a football man like Carlo.

I understand why Carlo was sacked. Over two seasons, including the season where we won the double, we didn’t do as well as we should have. Carlo couldn’t get the best out of our squad and he couldn’t pull us out of the slump. And, he failed in the champions league barrier. Whether these arguments are right is debatable. We have been debating on this very blog on these lines. In my view though, I fully believe in the above statements. When Roman also has similar belief, more often the reaction is brutal.

We now have an impression of Roman. We know what he likes and wants. We know what he cannot tolerate. He is success-hungry. He wants to win the champions league. He cannot tolerate failure. Now, if we need to find The Right One (yup, not the special one or the fantastic one), our manager needs to mirror the expectations of the owner. That means, our manager should also be success-hungry, should give everything to win the champions league and must hate to fail or lose. In a way, Jose Mourinho was that, which is why our most successful period was when Jose and Roman worked together.

This is why options like Benitez, Pellegrini, Redknapp, Lippi etc are straightaway a NO. They are not the kind of managers Roman is looking for. These can be the short term managers until we get the big fish. Who would that big fish be? Andre Villas Boas seems to be less ambitious for the Chelsea project. Otherwise, he could be a fine candidate. The only match that I got to see of his Porto was the Europa final and Porto were terrible. But then, he won the title!

The other name that’s in the air is, none other than Josep Guardiola. There are rumours that we’ve made an approach. It’s quite known that he wants out of Barcelona because he wants a new challenge. Winning with this Barcelona team is certainly not as big a challenge as with any other team. He’s young, he’s successful and success-hungry, he’s won two champions league titles already. He’s just fine for Chelsea. But he’s going to see out his contract with Barca which ends next season.

Pep has won a lot in his initial few years in football management. I for one, would wait for him to repeat his magic in a different league, with players of different quality and calibre than Barca’s, working in a different country in different type institutions with different ideologies. Pretty much what I ask of Messi too. All said, Pep can be an incredible choice for us. And he could be the man that Roman might want to give time and patience to build the new Chelsea. So, it could be another case of finding a temporary manager while we wait for the permanent manager to arrive.

These are all rumours and unconfirmed news. We need to wait, probably for weeks, for the appointment of the new Chelsea manager. If it’s a temporary manager that comes in, I’m fine. As regards, the permanent manager, I really hope someone who’s under 50 and comes to Chelsea to prove a point than to treat this as a retirement plan. For me, lack of track record is not a problem, poor track record is. A young, confident, courageous and ambitious manager (Brendan Rodgers anyone?) is what I’m looking for. Not easy, I know. Anyway, it shouldn’t be that easy to find a manager for a club like Chelsea FC. After all, we’re talking about ‘The Right One’.

On Friday,  June 3rd, Belgium play Turkey in Brussels. There’s a lot at stake in this game.

Oh sure, Turkey’s Euro qualification depends upon it. But that’s not we care about. Much more important to us is that Chelsea’s future may also be riding on the outcome of the match.

Two key people will be in the stadium that day, people seen as vital to Chelsea’s growth and aspirations.

The first we all know about. He’s Guus Hiddink, Turkey’s manager. Hiddink is proud of never having broken a contract. If Turkey wins, they might yet qualify for the Euro 2012 finals. In 2010 Hiddink signed a 2-year contract with Turkey.  So as long as Turkey are alive in the Euro, Guus will be by the Bosphorus.

But what if Turkey lose to Belgium? Ah, that’s the scenario that has the rumor mill churning away full time. The chattering classes claim that if les Belges derail Turkey, Guus will be ditched. And guess who’s supposedly waiting in the tunnel to offer him his next job? His #1 fan, Roman Abramovich. Despite Guus’ failures with the Russian and (presumably) Turkish national teams, Roman’s crush on him is undying. Love is forever, right?

So the identity of Chelsea’s future manager (or sporting director) depends on the outcome of next Friday’s match.

The other key figure at the Roi Baudouin Stadium is Belgium striker Romelu Lukaku. The 18 year-old has been courted by Chelsea for going on two years, now. He’s big, he’s strong and he reminds people of Didier Drogba. He also scores a bit: this season he has 20 goals in 49 matches in all competitions for his club, Anderlecht.  Plus 2 goals in 9 matches for his country.

And that’s where the rumors are flying again. It’s said that after the Turkey match Lukaku will be sold to Chelsea. The price tag will be in the area of £20 million. Now, bear in mind that the source for this rumor is the Daily Mail, a newspaper more interested in headlines than facts.

Nevertheless, if you’re a Chelsea supporter with time on his hands next Friday, you could do worse than watch the Belgium-Turkey match. It could be a sneak peek  at Chelsea’s future.

It’s now official. Carlo Ancelotti has parted company with Chelsea. Here is the official statement from the official Chelsea FC Website:

Chelsea Football Club can confirm that Carlo Ancelotti parted company with the club today (Sunday, 22 May).

The owner and board would like to thank Carlo for his contribution and achievements since taking over as manager in July 2009, which included winning the Double for the first time in the club’s history.

However, this season’s performances have fallen short of expectations and the club feels the time is right to make this change ahead of next season’s preparations.

Carlo will always be welcome at Stamford Bridge, where he will be given the reception and respect his position in our history deserves.

Chelsea’s long-term football objectives and ambitions remain unchanged and we will now be concentrating all our efforts on identifying a new manager.

There will be no further comment until that appointment is made.

Thank you Carlo for all the good memories! You’re a part of our history. You will have our respect for that. Wish you all the best!

The season’s over, finally. Probably, it was a fitting end to a drab season that we lost to a 10-man Everton. Didn’t get to see the match but don’t think I missed much. Like many, I was shocked by the starting line-up. I think Carlo badly wanted to win this one. When he does want to win a match so badly, he goes with his big name players. He did just that on this last day too.

Two wins in the last two games would have helped us cross the 75-points mark. Instead, we’re sitting tied on 71 points with Man City, only ahead of them by the goal difference which was accumulated in the early games this campaign. This is Chelsea’s lowest points tally under Roman. The next lowest is 79 points under Ranieri in 03-04. I must say, 71 points with this Chelsea squad with a manager of Carlo’s quality and calibre, is very poor return. We’re only made to look decent by our competition.

We should thank the early season momentum which has helped us not to slip to third place. Though we started well, we ended up scoring 69 goals as against the 100+ tally last season. Of this 69 goals, 21 goals (works out to 30%) were scored in the first 5 games of this campaign.

In my book, this is a poor performance considering that we have one of the best squads in the country and we were less affected by injuries than Man Utd and Arsenal. In fact, our injury situation this season is a very normal one in football. If we don’t want to get affected by injuries even this much, we can’t be playing football.

Chelsea of this season has given a few great memories and lots of pathetic performances. This team this season has not been mentally strong. Our football has been poor. Out attitude has been worse. And we have not made progress. You know what my stance is – the buck stops with the manager. Period.

I don’t know if Carlo would be the manager tomorrow morning. I have a feeling that he would not be sacked. I think he would just make it. Anyway, he’s got one season left in his contract. There are not too many managerial options available in the market. Roman could surprise everyone by giving one more chance to Carlo.

It’s not the trophies. It’s not the victories. It’s not the points or goals on the league table. If only these things mattered, you wouldn’t find fans for lesser clubs. What really matters are things such as attitude, mentality, hunger and pride – precisely the areas where Chelsea have fallen behind this season.

You don’t need to look beyond the premier league to see that quality of players, squad strength etc don’t matter when it comes to the fight. Battles are won with the mind before the feet get involved. Blackpool’s defeat today is a case in point. They gave it all. Blackpool’s effort today at Old Trafford was way better than Chelsea’s effort at Old Trafford a couple of weeks back. There lies the difference. Blackpool fans must have held their head high despite their defeat and relegation because their team were punching above their weight. It’s not always about the results. It’s how we go about the business.

In my humble opinion, the manager has failed this season. That doesn’t mean he would fail next season too. He only needs to realise what went wrong and come back. I think he can. What matters is, if Roman also thinks he can. Losing all four key knockout matches won’t help Carlo in his discussions with Roman. On an overall basis, Roman should be convinced that Carlo is the man to take this club forward with league and european success and develop the Chelsea brand.

Hope we get some certainty on the manager situation from the club as soon as possible. If he stays, well then, “Buck up, Carlo, you gotta do a lot better next season”. If he goes, “Thanks for the memories, Carlo! All the best!”. Let’s wait and see!

What were you expecting? A thumping win in the last game of this season at Stamford Bridge against Newcastle who are playing for nothing but pride? Same here. In the end, in a game where we were to make a point, we just did that, got a point.

We made six changes to the side that lost to Man Utd last weekend. Finally, Essien didn’t start. Good omen. Josh McE started. Even better. Yossi was there. Alex in place of David Luiz. Torres for Drogba. This in fact looked like a very attacking line-up. If only we had bothered to play ball!

We probably got exactly what we deserved. For a game that was not supposed to mean much to either sides, this was a well fought contest. That said, I must also say this was a well fought but terribly boring game of football. Our defenders scored our goals and we conceded through a deflection and a poor set piece defending in the last minute.

Some say that this game summed up our season. I disagree. If a game summed up our season, it would be like this:

We take 3-0 lead in 15 minutes. That’s when we stop attacking. We see Lamps is limping but we don’t want to sub him. We concede in the 35th min and 45th min. 3-2 at HT. Right after the half time, Drogba is injured and walking. We continue to play him as he says he’s fine. He continues to walk. Essien keeps passing to the opponents like he’s switched sides. We don’t sub him because he’s Essien. We concede again in the 55th min and the score’s 3-3. We still don’t attack. Then we go down 3-4 in the 65th minute. With most of our players limping or walking, we still don’t attack. We bring on Torres. The rest of the team treat Torres like he’s still with Liverpool. We concede again. There you go. A match that we led 3-0 is now down to 3-5. Fans start booing, start walking off the stadium much to the disdain of the ‘real fans’.

Opponents are totally in control. We’re just going through the motions. Just 5 mins more. The game totally looks lost. Suddenly, we realise this is Stamford Bridge and we can turn it around. We find some energy but it’s already stoppage time. Drogba scores a screamer to put us 4-5. Game on! Get in there! Last 90 seconds of stoppage time. Right at the last minutes, we get a dodgy penalty and we convert it. We convert it. 5-5 now. In the last one minute, we give away possession only for the opponent to finish a sweet passing move to score the winner in the last few seconds of the match. We lose 5-6 at home. We hail the team’s fighting spirit for coming back from 3-5 down to make a match of it.

Now, if this happened, you can say the game summed up our season.

I don’t know if there’s much point in going into the details of the match. I’ll touch upon some big headlines. We played in our new home kit for 2011/12. I don’t like this kit. I don’t know how am I going to stand this kit for all season. Hopefully, I’ll get some good memories next season so I remember this kit for good reasons. I have to say this. Whoever got the idea of painting so much white on the shoulder should be go to jail.

Finally. Finally. Finally. Josh McE made his first premier league start for Chelsea. Finally. He played the defensive midfielder role today. He was a bit shaky when he started but then he grew well into the match. One of our better performers of the day. Deserved to play all 90 minutes. Don’t know how and why Lampard had to play for 90 minutes in such a match. Josh also got very good appreciation from various football pundits and media for his performance today. Hope he gets to start more matches, in a more attacking role.

Our attacking play in this match was something we had gotten used to. Same slow build-up which results in attacking players clogging the box and waiting for the ball to arrive. It wasn’t a surprise that both our goals were from set pieces. Not much was created otherwise. The match itself was pretty boring. Not sure if that was to do with the fact that the league’s been won by Man Utd already.

Now, with this result we should have run the risk of losing our second place. But then, as I write this, Arsenal are 0-2 to Villa at the Emigrants. As always this season, our opponents are making us look more decent than we actually are. My biggest fear is that we don’t become like Arsenal. Feeble and fragile – mentally and physically. Pure confidence team. Plays brilliant football when things go well and responds poorly to adversity. Lacking fight with poor resilience. Revered and respected manager. Lots of stability. Less success. In simple terms, premier league’s also-rans and bridesmaids. Someone please wake me up from this nightmare!

The question today was, is this Carletto’s last match at Stamford Bridge? Before the match, Carlo said this:

I don’t want to think about it being my last home game. I am focused to put the best team out, to win, to say thanks to our fans. They gave us fantastic support and it’s not been an easy season for them. It doesn’t matter if it’s the last or not. We have to wait and see what happens at the end of the season. I don’t know what is going to happen about my future, but I’m not nervous. I’m quiet. I’m calm. I hope to stay – I’ve said a lot of times – but if something’s changed, I will find another solution without problem. I think that I have a very good relationship with the players, but I don’t think it would be a problem for next season if I’m not here. I hope, obviously, to stay here, but there may be another coach and they’ll have the same relationship.

You draw your conclusions.

Just one more game to this season. Truly, I wish this season had ended already. Honestly, I feel mentally very tired myself. Let’s end the season soon. Let’s make those decisions on manager and players – this way or that way – let’s make those decisions, so we can move forward. Too many rumours, too many uncertainties, lack of understanding – you can’t miss the sense of grimness around Stamford Bridge today. We didn’t come out with our chin up on the last day at the Bridge. In fact, as much as I saw, there was no farewell to the Stamford Bridge crowd from the players or manager. I truly hope they did when the cameras weren’t watching them. [Update: Yes, they did a lap of honour. Thank you guys!]

Let’s go to Goodison. Let’s not be defeated. Let’s go back to the drawing board straight from the pitch. That’s all there’s to be done.