Martin Kane looks at the worrying trend of the owner/manager and the catastrophic results that it subsequently brings and warns Chelsea fans to be afraid…be very afraid!

Be afraid Chelsea supporters, be very afraid. Your Chairman is embarking on a course of action, that can bring disappointment at best, abject misery at worst.  Time will tell exactly what Roman Abramovic’s “greater interest in team affairs” will mean for Chelsea, though it is likely to be one of two things. 

Either he has adopted the Real Madrid approach of eschewing a well stocked trophy cabinet in favour of football that is easy on the eye, at the apparently cheap expense of results, or, worse still, he intends to fundamentally manage the team himself albeit via a proxy – Mr Avram Grant. Option one would be bad enough, option two has the potential for utter catastrophe.  

Every so often, like an actor or actress who feels the need to inflict a singing career on us all, a chairman feels he has to move downstairs to the dugout. All too many chairmen have tired of their manager and adopted the old adage “if you want something doing properly, do it yourself”. Abramovich has of course installed a manager, however, which of the two is the monkey and which is the organ grinder remains to be seen. Grant’s credentials for the job are so modest, that you can’t help thinking that either Abramovich has made one of the most astute and daring appointments in living memory, or has installed a man he feels he can control, or at the very least keep on a tighter leash than Jose.  

The most intriguing titbit to emerge from Stamford Bridge in the wake of Mourinho’s exit was the image of Abramovich, with the aid of a blackboard and London’s most expensive Russian to English translator, Andrei Shevchenko, explaining to Michael Essien, why his attempts at incisive through-balls hadn’t worked. Essien’s expression as this peculiar spectacle developed in front of him must have been something to behold. Goodness only knows what he made of it; arguably the classiest midfielder in the Premiership having his shortcomings explained by Mr Abramovich.

The following day, Roman and his sinister looking goons watched from the sidelines, looming over Grant as he held his first training session. His presence didn’t exactly give the Israeli the chance to stamp his ‘I’m in charge now” credentials on the team. Abramovich lurked for a while, shared a joke or two with Grant, before sloping off. Having already foisted unwanted players on Mourinho, actions such as these indicate Abramovich has now also developed a hunger for tactics, and possibly team selection. Abramovich is by no means the first manager to make this unwelcome intrusion in to team affairs. 

Ten years ago, Michael Knighton, Carlisle chairman, appointed himself team manager. You might remember Knighton from his unsuccessful attempt to buy Manchester United in 1989, however when this fell through, his consolation prize was Carlisle whom he bought in 1992, promising Premiership football. After a decent start to the Knighton era, Carlisle found themselves in Division Two (League One in new money), yet a disappointing opening to the 1997-98 season saw Knighton dismiss Mervyn Day, and to the delight of absolutely no-one, appoint himself as team manager. Relegation to Division Three was followed by an abysmal start on their arrival at the lower level. With relegation to non-league football a distinct possibility, Knighton mercifully dismissed himself from the job, and Carlisle’s season began to improve. 

Ultimately the best thing that can be said of Knighton’s reign of terror is that it provided the platform for goalkeeper Jimmy Glass to score the last gasp winner that kept Carlisle in the football league, thus creating one of the truly memorable moments in football.  Bad as Knighton’s tenure at Carlisle was, it was nothing compared to the regime of misery that American, Terry Smith, inflicted on Chester City’s fans. 

Like Knighton, Smith made bold promises – Championship football within three years in his case – and he also shared Knighton’s misguided notion that he could be the man to do it if his manager was not up to the task.  Four games into the 1999-00 season, manager Kevin Ratcliffe quit, and Smith gamely stepped up to the plate, despite having little or no knowledge of coaching football.  Results were poor, yet Smith had the solution – a coach for D-Fence and a coach for O-Fence were duly appointed, yet there was no noticeable change in fortunes – in spite of pre-match meals at fast food restaurants.  This dismal run continued until January 2000, when Ian Atkins was appointed Director of Football and took charge of team affairs (though Smith bizarrely retained the title ‘manager’).  Atkins, working under dreadful conditions, gave Chester a fighting chance, yet defeat to Peterborough on the final day saw them relegated to the Conference. 

Giving Abramovich the benefit of the doubt, and assuming he is not actually going to ‘be’ the manager, his obvious interference in the way team affairs are handled is cause for concern enough. There are dangerous parallels with Hearts, who under George Burley and his impressive squad were beginning to show signs of genuinely rivalling the old firm. In late October 2005 with Hearts top of the SPL, owner Vladimir Romanov unaccountably fired Burley, just hours prior to Hearts match with Dunfermline. As with Mourinho there was talk of “mutual consent”, yet it was obvious that Burley, arguably enjoying the best spell of his managerial career was unlikely to resign unless faced with insurmountable opposition from above. Since Burley’s departure a succession of managers have been and gone at Hearts, including one from Lithuania, one from Belarus, and now a Ukrainian, while Romanov’s measured style has seen him place the entire first team squad up for sale after a disappointing draw.   

Will Abramovich make such a poor fist of things at Chelsea? It is unlikely given how much money is at stake; one would expect common sense will overtake him before true disaster has the chance to set in.

However, with the likes of Manchester City and Everton improving all the time, it could take just one 5^th place finish to set in place a chain reaction that sees Abramovich up and leave. Let us not forget that 5^th place was what started the troubles at Leeds United.