A LESSON FOR ABRAMOVICH

Don't ask me why I'm blogging about England's Chelsea Football Club.You ought to know. Chelsea has perhaps the largest number of Aftrican first team players among the elite clubs in Europe,and this includes Nigeria's brightest star - John Mikel Obi,and as happened with Arsenal in the heydays of 'king' Kanu,Chelsea is embraced as an african team by most Africans.

You can then imagine how proud we Africans were in the last three years when Chelsea upturned the formbooks to wrest the dominance of English football from Manchester United and Arsenal.You can now further imagine how deeply dissappointed most of us were when in the first few weeks of the outgoing season,the club decided to sack Jose Mourinho,the 'special one',the manager who led the new revolution in English football.

Well, rich people think differently from ordinary folks,but Abramovich's decision to offload Mourinho beggars explanation.I mean here was a coach that came with a pedigree of success,and achieved instant success.What then was the reason?Failure to win the Champions Leaque?The fact that Liverpool,with only modest domestic success in recent years could be so successful in Europe should confirm that European success is not necessarily a yardstick to measure the strength of any team:Otherwise Man U would not have waited for 9 years to lift the trophy.In any case if Chelsea could get to the semi-finals twice , victory surely could not have been too far away.

Or was it the lure of the so-called attractive football?Did we forget so soon that the original masters, Brazil , have long ago jettisoned the samba game for a more direct,result oriented style?In any case a neutral review of English football in the last 3 seasons would reveal that some of the most exciting games involved Chelsea.Rewind to the gruelling duels with Man U in 2006,and the epic UEFA battle with Barcelona at Stamford Bridge, for instance.

Was it then the string of drawn matches at the beginning of the season?I'm sure Abramovich is not so ignorant about football.Look at where all the teams that were top 4 at that same period ended the season;for example Arsenal's run in the last three months of the season was by
comparison a disaster.In fact if all team proprietors acted like Abramovich,Sir Alex Ferguson would have been sacked at least 3 times in the last 9 years.I would not even want to talk about the effect that Drogba and Lampard's injuries had on the team.

Abramovich had the rare luck of employing a winner as Manager,then took the resultant success for granted.He failed to realise that what differentiates Sir Alex and Arsene Wenger from other good coaches is the winning mentality.Mourinho was not necessarily better at coaching than Ruud Gullit,but he brought a winning mentality to Chelsea.

And most unfortunately,that was the missing attribute in his successor,Avram Grant ( although I wouldn't want to join other Chelsea supporters in renaming him 'Average Grant' because I actually think he is a good coach ).Under Mourinho Chelsea soared when the big occassion beckoned; under Grant they crumbled like water mellon.Take a closer look at the final premiership game against Bolton, and the closing stages of the Champions Leaque in Moscow.

I started to have serious doubts about Avram Grant's mental strength and Chelsea's likely run in the season, in January when the English press started to brandish statistics showing how Grant had won so many matches since taking over from Mourinho.Grant appeared to revel in those glowing,but absolutely meaningless publicity.In the next two months Chelsea were bundled out of both the Leaque Cup and the FA Cup - the two easiest competitions of the season.

Yet the deceptive ovation continued;from how Grant had taken Chelsea to touching distance of the Premiership title,to how he 'surpassed' Mourinho in reaching the Champions Leaque final.Now Grant could not hold back:He demanded to be recognised as the real 'special one'.Yet both battles were still in progress.He had won nothing.

In the end he won nothing.More succintly, Chelsea Football Club,for the first time in 3 years ended a season without a single trophy.Her proprietor,Roman Abramovich would reflect on that calamity,and realise that it was all down to one irrational,perhaps reckless decision he took at the beginning of the season.