Van Persie accepted Chelsea's gifts
There was another enthralling goalfest between Champions League hopefuls this weekend, as Chelsea surrendered to Arsenal in the closing minutes, in a manner more befitting of… well, Arsenal. 3-3 with five minutes left, a monstrous cockup by Florent Malouda and John Terry sent the league’s most in-form striker through on goal, and Robin Van Persie made no mistake when one-on-one with Petr Cech.
Chelsea’s concession of five goals at home has been excused by manager André Villas-Boas as being an occupational hazard of playing an open, attacking game. He said the same after Chelsea were defeated 3-1 at Old Trafford (a game which, on chances, should have had a similar scoreline to the Blues’ weekend fixture). The Portuguese has been praised in some quarters for his efforts to turn Chelsea from that unmistakably solid machine his countryman José Mourinho made them, into a team of free-flowing, attacking entertainers. I’d point out that a false dichotomy is being drawn between two extremes, as Carlo Ancelotti found the perfect blend in his first season in charge – Chelsea’s defence was the second best in the division, and they scored a record-breaking 103 goals on their way to the title.
A more worrying point to note for Chelsea is that three of the five goals Arsenal hit at the Bridge could not have been explained by an over-emphasis on attack. Van Persie’s first goal, which equalised Frank Lampard’s opener, involved Gervinho slipping through the Blues’ defence untracked and passing to the equally untroubled Dutchman for a tap-in. No counter-attack there, and Arsenal had possession for a spell in their opponents’ half. Theo Walcott’s solo strike was aided by as ludicrous a failure to play to the whistle as Blackburn’s Steven Nzonzi at Norwich. And Van Persie’s second – from Malouda’s sloppy backpass to an apparently immobile Terry – owes about as much to Chelsea pushing forward as any of Arsenal’s success this season will owe to their defensive solidity (‘not much’ is the point I’m making).
So that line is an easy excuse for the new manager to make. If he was a long-serving manager of a club I’d say he was taking the pressure off his players. But he’s not – he’s taking the pressure off himself. Villas-Boas comes across as an intelligent guy in his interviews and I’m sure he knows what’s expected at Chelsea. Even a domestic double in Ancelotti’s first season didn’t buy him enough credit for the heinous crime of finishing second the following campaign. That Chelsea shelled out around £14m to buy out his Porto contract suggests Villas-Boas is part of Roman Abramovich’s long-term plan, but he can’t legislate for the players losing faith in the manager. A phenomenon much more common at Stamford Bridge than most other clubs, and a result almost completely of their quickfire success.
Chelsea is a strange club in a way – they have to have the mentality of a historically successful club like Manchester United, Arsenal or Liverpool in order to convince players of their status as a big club, and part of that is to build up their biggest achievements, which have come since Abramovich rolled into town in 2003. Players like John Terry, Frank Lampard, Petr Cech and Didier Drogba have been present for the majority of those years, and being permanent features despite the coming and going of six managers undoubtedly convinces them that their bosses – rather than the workforce – are the expendable ones. That’s the danger of Abramovich’s scattergun approach to managers – the balance of power tips to the players’ egos with every firing and hiring.
Up the M6, another manager has been afforded patience despite a slow start, and it’s paying dividends for the fans. Roberto Mancini failed in his initial brief, to take Manchester City to the Champions League, but when his apparently negative style was blamed, the Italian was spared the chop and kept on. The next season they finished third. Now, they are five points clear at the summit. City’s lack of success in recent years saved him, and now they are reaping the rewards. Villas-Boas doesn’t have the luxury of reduced expectation. If he can’t succeed in changing Chelsea’s defending – or his own approach – he may lose the players, and won’t be so lucky.
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