Premier league

Chelsea – Would you want this man to manage your club?

By soccersweep

Posted on Mar 6, 2012

courtesy of www.jameshusbands.com

Talk about out of the frying pan into the fire. The, at best, curious Rafa Benitez has now thrown his name into the hat for the position of Chelsea manager. I don’t know what is worse. AVP45 sleeping in his office looking for overnight inspiration as to how to coach a football team or the moody Spaniard coming in and turning the team into a boring, depressed and badly oiled machine.

Rafa metaphorically shot himself in the foot by famously talking about ‘facts’ the moment his club got one point ahead of Manchester United in the title race a couple of years ago. Immediately after the interview Liverpool went on a terrible run and neither he nor they have since recovered. The inordinately proud Spaniard Benitez went on to a disastrous spell in charge of Inter and has since been watering the plants in his no doubt boundlessly big garden. Personally, I think that he’s one of those guys who just got really lucky in finding his way into football management.

But what do I know? Perhaps I’m being harsh. After all, he momentarily broke the duopoly in Spain with Valencia before delivering a European Cup at Liverpool. He also, seemingly, knows how to get the best out of Fernando Torres.

But, for my money, he lacks the man management skills required for success at Chelsea. Look at the successful coaches in world football. They are utterly revered by their players. Fergie always knows what to say to his boys. Tottenham players look like they would take a bullet for Harry. At Barcelona Pep gets more man hugs than Graham Norton. Meanwhile, Jose Mourinho was so beloved of his players at Chelsea that, most of the time, it just looked like one big orgy. In that period, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a picture of Frank Lampard nibbling the ear of The Special One whilst John Terry cupped his, arms.

Then there’s Rafa. I’m sure he has many fans around the world of football and has certainly achieved much. But he most definitely would not be my choice for the Chelsea managerial vacancy.