Claudio Ranieri being pushed out of Stamford Bridge at the end of the season hardly counts as a shock or a story any more. There will be no tears for the Tinkerman when the time comes, no matter how dignified his departure, because all parties involved know his fate has been sealed for some time.
Chelsea did not poach Peter Kenyon from Manchester United to allow his heart to rule his head and the fact of the matter is that even knocking Arsenal out of the Champions League would not be enough to save Ranieri's skin. Kenyon, the chief executive at Stamford Bridge, is talking to prospective replacements now, as Ottmar Hitzfeld has just made painfully obvious, and nothing short of beating Real Madrid or Monaco to reach the European Cup final would make Ranieri's position unassailable.
That much is decided. What might surprise Chelsea supporters more is how much is undecided. Not only are Chelsea without a clue about who will be in charge next season, Kenyon is even prepared to admit the club are still in the dark about their best team. Ranieri appears unable to make his mind up, perhaps hindered by the range of options at his disposal, and the wealthiest club in the Premiership are now in a hurry to find someone who can make sense of their embarrassment of riches.
In conversation with Kenyon a couple of days ago, it became clear that he is faced with exactly the same problem he had when Sir Alex Ferguson was due to retire at Manchester United and is working his way through the same, extremely short, list of possible replacements. Chelsea's new chief executive already has the numbers of Hitzfeld, Fabio Capello, Marcello Lippi and Sven-Göran Eriksson in his address book from last time and, although he would be failing in his duty if he did not line up a successor before bringing down the axe on Ranieri, he must be hoping they will not all be as indiscreet as Hitzfeld.
Not before time, Chelsea are beginning to realise that money does not buy everything, and it can even make a situation more complicated. In all probability, whichever manager they end up with will be a compromise. Given a free choice, there is no doubt that the manager they would choose is the one who will be standing a couple of yards from Ranieri on Wednesday night. The same one the FA would love to succeed Eriksson. Chelsea are looking for someone who can identify talent, improve players, build a settled side over a period of years and forge a fierce team spirit, all the time playing adventurous, attacking football. But Arsène Wenger is ungettable. End of story.
Eriksson would not be a bad fall-back position, even if he is a second choice. Hardly famed for adventurous, attacking football, he is low on Premiership experience and, while he proved he could spend money with the best of them at Lazio, his credentials as a coach who can transform good players into great ones are less well established. When Chelsea take the plunge and sack the popular Ranieri, they must get the next appointment right.
Eriksson would come with a few risks attached, if he agrees to come at all. He is known to be less enchanted with the FA than he used to be, but unless England perform miserably at Euro 2004 there is no honourable way Eriksson can turn up at Stamford Bridge later this summer. He has repeatedly pointed out his contract lasts until 2006 and, if he does turn his back on England before that date, it might not be for a club in this country. Even Roman Abramovich's millions may not prevent Chelsea being gazumped by Real Madrid, should Eriksson indicate his availability.
Suggestions that Kenyon could try to tempt Sir Alex Ferguson are fanciful, given the manager's age and Chelsea's insistence that they are seeking someone for the long term, but they confirm the extent of his predicament. Having turned Ranieri into a lame duck, Chelsea have only the usual suspects to round up and must secure an agreement quickly without giving the impression of being needy or desperate. Chelsea want someone risk-free, yet for any leading Serie A coach with a reputation to protect the Premiership represents a risk.
To the outsider, it seems daft to remove Ranieri just when he has seen £120million ploughed into the team and just when Chelsea have overtaken Manchester United as Arsenal's main challengers. But Abramovich and Kenyon have their reasons. A significant one is that no one at the club, including the manager, has worked out Chelsea's best team yet. One thing that money can buy is too many players.
'You need a certain size of squad to compete in the Champions League, but over and above that I'm not sure extra players add an awful lot and you can end up with a disruptive situation,' Kenyon explained. 'There has to be a core of six or seven players who appear on the teamsheet every week. Historically, successful teams have always had that and we would like it, too. Unfortunately, probably for reasons of injuries and so many players settling in, we haven't been able to identify our core players as readily as we would have liked.'
Restlessness from Claude Makelele, Joe Cole and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink testifies to that, and rather than spending half a billion this summer or buying any more of Real Madrid's star players, Chelsea will be stepping tentatively into the selling market.
'What we did last summer led to "dream team" headlines and stories that we were emulating Real Madrid, but that's not what we are about,' said Kenyon. 'There will be less activity this summer. Partly because there doesn't need to be [as much], and partly because we will be putting a lot of money into academy and training-ground infrastructure instead. We have identified that as an area of weakness within the club.
'If you want to build a world-class side, to attract the very best young players from around the world, you have to have world-class facilities. We want to make Chelsea a sustainable success story, not a one-off. Gearing everything up to buying a Champions League spot doesn't work, and neither does winning the championship once and then disappearing. Chelsea will be run as a business but in a different way to other English clubs. We will not be running up a massive debt. We cannot just go on adding to the squad either. Inevitably there will be players coming in this summer but there will also be players going out.' Kenyon makes no secret of the fact that the immediate aim is to resemble Arsenal; resembling Real Madrid will have to wait. Chelsea cannot dominate the world until they can at least match north London, and Arsenal's present levels of teamwork and understanding remind Kenyon of Manchester United in their Treble season.
'If you look at the fluent aspect, the understanding between the team, the number of balls they knock 30 yards and there's someone on the end, it all comes from having a group of players who have played together, developed together and moved on together, and that is reminiscent of what I experienced at United in 1999,' he said.
'You can't expect that after one season. It took Arsenal a few years to put it together. That's why I stress we are in this for the long term. You can't buy time. We understand that, but we have a great opportunity with young players like John Terry and Frank Lampard, who will be with us for a good many years. We have youth on our side and we have the beginnings of a core to the team. Experience is being built right now. We are second in the Premiership and in the quarter-final of the Champions League. That's the sort of experience you can never take away.'
Kenyon is right. Chelsea are in a unique and enviable position. So unique and enviable that they can afford to look beyond the so-called safe-bet options and find themselves a manager who might stick around for the best part of a decade and grow with the club. What they want is what Manchester United got in 1986 and Arsenal discovered 10 years later: a reasonably young, ultra-ambitious manager with his best years still ahead of him.
The trick to this game is to catch your man before he becomes famous, or infamous, and before he becomes so well established in Italy or Germany that he would be doing you a favour by coming to work for you at all. Hitzfeld is 55, though he was only 49 when Bayern Munich snapped him up, after his Borussia Dortmund side were audacious enough to trounce Juventus in the 1997 European Cup final. As the game was played in Munich, Bayern could hardly have been expected not to notice. Hitzfeld has delivered four domestic titles and another European Cup since, though Chelsea should be asking themselves why Bayern now appear to think his best years might be behind him and are making eyes at Stuttgart's Felix Magath. It would make more sense for Chelsea to cut out the middle man and go straight for Magath.
They could also consider a former player. Didier Deschamps is doing well at Monaco and is tipped to be next coach of France. Or even look a little closer to home and give Martin O'Neill a try. Chelsea are believed to be reluctant to explore that option because they are dismissive of the standard of Scottish football. Fair enough; Italian and German football is much better. But who are the two most successful and long-lasting Premiership managers? Manchester United got Ferguson from Scottish football, and perhaps even more pertinently this week it is worth remembering that Arsenal picked up Wenger from Japan.
Fortune favours the brave, even if you are favoured with a fortune. Chelsea have spent all season flashing the cash: now is the time to show some judgment.
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