Avram Grant not looking to win friends
By Tim Rich
Sport.Telegraph, 8th October 2007
It is Bobby Robson's first and only season as manager of Barcelona and
already he can see the white handkerchiefs being waved from the topless
stands of the Nou Camp to signify their displeasure.
He has come to replace one of the most charismatic, opinionated and successful
managers Spanish football has known and, unlike Jose Mourinho, Johan Cruyff
knew what it was to play in World and European cup finals. Robson is struggling
to learn Spanish, let alone Catalan, and compared to Cruyff he seems grey and
dull.
At half-time Barcelona are three goals down to one of the also-rans of
Spanish football but, somehow, come back to snatch the match 4-3. The
next day Robson surveys the press. One headline reads: "The manager loses
the first half, the players win the second."
And this is what Avram Grant will always face. It was the end of a few
days which, under other circumstances, would have been highly-successful.
The remarkable recovery in the Mestalla to overcome a Valencia side who
were expected to carry out a ritual execution of Chelsea's supposedly
faction-ridden team was followed by their first Premier League victory
since August.
Not once was Grant's name mentioned by those who had travelled up from the
Home Counties, and this will go down as a match won by a moment of brilliance
from Salomon Kalou. In all other respects it was the kind of hard-bitten
victory that was so often orchestrated by Mourinho, a man who always knew to
whom the credit should be given. In his first campaign at Stamford Bridge, he
took the title at Bolton in a season in which 13 matches were won 1-0.
If, by removing Mourinho, Chelsea's owner, Roman Abramovich, hoped for a more
entertaining side and a pivotal role for his friend, Andrei Shevchenko, he is
being grimly disappointed. Grant argued yesterday that his first responsibility
was to stabilise Chelsea's results before unveiling the beautiful game, a
process he said would take "several months".
The goal that decided this match was beautifully taken; a long ball that
Kalou, under pressure from the hulking shape of Abdoulaye Meite, controlled
with one touch, pushed past Jussi Jaaskelainen and then shot into the corner
of the Bolton net as Meite clung on to him. It was Chelsea's first goal for
461 minutes of Premier League football and the first under Grant. It was
worth the wait.
Shevchenko did not start either here or in Valencia, and even when Kalou was
withdrawn at the interval with a hamstring injury that will put more pressure
on Chelsea's forward-line, his replacement was not the once-great Ukrainian
but Claudio Pizarro.
"When I took the job I wasn't told to pick the friends of Peter Kenyon [the
chief executive] or Simon Greenberg [the communications director]," Grant
smiled on a day Ajax confirmed their manager, Henk ten Cate, was in
negotiations to join him as assistant manager. "I am here to make the best
decisions for the good of Chelsea.
"I don't want to live a life in football without pressure. Back in my own
country I was always involved with big clubs. Here there is pressure to do
well, it comes from inside myself and it comes from everyone. This is no
game for weakness."
John Terry would attest to that. Still wearing a mask to protect his
fractured cheekbone, he was given an intense working-over by Kevin Davies,
who epitomised the skill, desire and commitment still present in a Bolton
side floundering deep in the relegation zone.
The England captain will not be given a tougher examination by Estonia or
Russia.
Frank Lampard's return, after spending six of the most traumatic weeks in
Stamford Bridge's history nursing a thigh injury, was gently encouraging.
"For Frank to play for 90 minutes after six weeks out is good for him and
good for us," said Grant, who hinted that the injured Shaun Wright-Phillips
would recover in time for the internationals.
Like Grant, Bolton's manager, Sammy Lee, also knows what a pressurised
life feels like. Bolton and Chelsea had last won in the Premier League
on the same day, August 25, and Lee responded by dropping his captain,
Kevin Nolan, and his first-team coach, Gary Speed, from the squad. Lee
pointedly refused to give any reason for his decision other than parrot
the phrase: "I pick the team."
Lee first got to pick the team after Sam Allardyce's final match as Bolton
manager, a 2-2 draw at Stamford Bridge in April that handed the title to
Manchester United. Had Nicolas Anelka not driven his shot into Petr Cech's
body or had Stelios Giannakopoulos not headed the Frenchman's chip
fractionally over the bar, Bolton might have extracted another precious
point from Chelsea.
Once more under Lee the performance was better than the result, but this
is like staging a West End play that receives wonderful reviews but draws
a pitiful audience. Sooner or later, the producers will have to close down
the show. Lee's regime may have received its final notices.
|
|
© Copyright Telegraph Group Limited 2007.
Telegraph Group Limited endeavours to ensure that the
information is correct but does not accept any liability
for error or omission.
Users are permitted to copy some material for their
personal use as private individuals only. Users must not
republish any part of the data either on another website,
or in any other medium, print, electronic or otherwise,
or as part of any commercial service without the prior
written permission of Telegraph Group Limited.
|
| 
