Source: Daily_Mail
MARTIN SAMUEL: Ancelotti not calling the shots at Chelsea - it's Abramovich holding the smoking gun
It is not the fault of John Terry that Chelsea decided to go into this season with two central defenders, one of whom was injured. Considering the direction in which the club is headed it may not be the fault of Carlo Ancelotti, either.[LNB]When a manager is no longer able to select his right-hand man, who knows what other decisions have been taken from him? Seeking to retain supremacy in the most physically challenging major league in Europe and to win the Champions League for the first time, Chelsea have gambled massively in a crucial position.[LNB] This is agony: Alex takes a tumble onSaturday ahead of his delayed op[LNB] Terry and Alex were the only first-team central defenders going into this campaign, following the sale of Ricardo Carvalho to Real Madrid, and Terry was carrying a significant injury that had not cleared up from the previous season. Branislav Ivanovic, who is a right back, was to be the cover and, at a pinch, Paulo Ferreira, another full back, whose brief appearances in central roles were often the unsuccessful response to extreme circumstances. [LNB]Anyone who saw his performance as a centre-half at Liverpool under Jose Mourinho in 2007 would know he was not the answer in a crisis; a fact confirmed by his performance against Sunderland a week ago. Meanwhile, Michael Mancienne was allowed to stay at Wolverhampton Wanderers, on loan. [LNB] More from Martin Samuel... MARTIN SAMUEL: They're Celeb bullies... get them in there18/11/10 Chelsea captain Terry admits I won't be rushing back from injury this time 18/11/10 JOHN TERRY EXCLUSIVE: OK, I've lost the captaincy but don't take the ****18/11/10 Martin Samuel: Are John Henry's Liverpool crew just Double Glazers?16/11/10 Martin Samuel: Carlo offers Chelsea a ray of hope amid the Roman ruins14/11/10 Martin Samuel: British boxing will be real loser after Audley's no-show14/11/10 Martin Samuel: Roll up for the boxing X factor... heavy with hype, light on talent12/11/10 MARTIN SAMUEL: Grave doubts about Marks's latest wheeze11/11/10 VIEW FULL ARCHIVE This does not read like the work of a manager with Ancelotti's reputation. The most successful coaches take risks to win, but they do not leave a year of careful stewardship to chance, as Chelsea have done. It adds to the impression that the club now dance to the beat of a different drummer, that the same person who summarily decided Ray Wilkins was not a suitable member of staff is alsobehind a chain of events that forced Alex to delay knee surgery to playone last game on Saturday.[LNB]Now Terry will feel pressure to end his quest to permanently resolve the nerve pain in his right leg, by rushing his return to first-team action, perhaps as early as next weekend. [LNB]True, Terry was buoyed by treatment he received from a London-based physiotherapist, Kevin Lidlow, at the end of last week, but after so many years of playing through pain - he estimates he was less than 50 per cent fit for the match with Aston Villa on October 16 - he deserves the opportunity to put his wellbeing first, for once. [LNB]Ancelotti also talked up good news from Jean-Pierre Meersseman, the Milan-based specialist he recommended to Terry, but the player must return to Italy this week and there is no permanent resolution to the problem as yet.[LNB]In the same breath that Ancelotti talked of having Terry back to play Newcastle on Saturday, which seems incredibly hasty in the circumstances, he also admitted he may have to buy in January if Terry's problems do not ease. [LNB]And if Roman Abramovich, the owner, lets him. It is plain who calls the shots at Chelsea these days. In the same week that Michael Ballack claimed Ancelotti opposed his release in the summer, it was announced that the manager had a new assistant, Michael Emenalo, and that it was an appointment made at executive, not management, level. Ancelotti said he would not be letting Emenalo coach the first team, yet he sat by his side on the bench at Birmingham City on Saturday as Chelsea lost again, this time to a Lee Bowyer goal. [LNB] Killer blow: Lee Bowyer beats Petr Cech[LNB]Emenalo may be very good at his job, scouting the opposition, and is said to have a winning personality, but his sudden elevation will raise suspicions he is nothing more than Abramovich's nark. This may be unfair, but when a figure is clumsily imposed in this way, it is human nature to be suspicious. Mourinho's regime took a dim view when Abramovich's over-promoted friend, Avram Grant, was appointed director of football; not unreasonably, consideringhow events unfolded. [LNB]What is plain is that the dismissal of Wilkins and the weakness in central defence has exposed growing fissures at Stamford Bridge. Terry has given too much to the club to be the victim of a disturbing lack of foresight. Ancelotti has more than earned the right to discuss team matters without wondering how far those private thoughts travel beyond the walls of his office. No wonder the Chelsea manager was considering his future last night.[LNB]PRAY FOR LITTLE PEA... Javier Hernandez, the Manchester United striker from Mexico, goes through a very public, very Catholic, prayer ritual before every game. On Wednesday, his team face Rangers at Ibrox in the Champions League. This could be interesting... [LNB]These are familiar signs at Chelsea. Bemusing machinations preceded the departure of the last title-winning manager, Mourinho, in 2007 and few believe Ancelotti will wish to renew his contract which expires at the end of next season. He might not get that long. [LNB]On this day two years ago, Luiz Felipe Scolari's Chelsea team were top on goal difference from Liverpool, and playing some stunning football. Cracks were emerging, though. Home defeat by Liverpool, a 1-1 draw with Burnley at Stamford Bridge, a 3-1 defeat away against Roma in the Champions League. On November 22, 2008, Chelsea drew 0-0 with Newcastle and by February 9, 2009, Scolari had gone. [LNB]Abramovich is from the east and sometimes his football club seems to echo the whims and conspiracies of Russian politics. Principal figures fall in and out of favour very quickly, plots are hatched and coups attempted. And, as Terry is now discovering, the workforce is expendable and ripe for manipulation.[LNB] England are scheduled to play in Thailand next summer, in arguably the most senseless fixture in the history of international football. Worse than the one in South Africa in which David Beckham got injured in 2003, more unnecessary than the trip to the United States in 2005 or the match with Trinidad and Tobago in 2008 that would have been declared null and void had FIFA not decided to ignore their own rules on permissible substitutions. [LNB]The only reason to travel to Thailand in June is because the head of its association, Worawi Makudi, will vote on the hosts of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. Except, having agreed the fixture, it now transpires Makudi is backing Spain. [LNB]He has even asked the Football Association whether this will have an effect, but has been assured England will still come. The fact is, the FA has no choice. To pull out would be to admit that the match was a blatant attempt to secure a vote, which is skulduggery by another name, so the FA must continue pretending there is logic to an England team flying halfway around the world to play a nation ranked 114th - making them slightly stronger than Antigua and Barbuda - in 31-degree heat at the end of an exhausting Premier League season. [LNB]This is where a World Cup bid gets us. It really is the gift that keeps on giving. The players, all of them, via their union, should simply refuse to go.[LNB] Fab's crazy critics take the Mick...It is open season on Fabio Capello now, so Premier League managers are queuing up to pop him. Mick McCarthy, of Wolverhampton Wanderers, is upset by the treatment of winger Matt Jarvis, named in the provisional squad long list that is sent out to clubs, but excluded from the final 22. [LNB]'Matt was warned he might be in but then you find out through the media he is not,' McCarthy said. 'The hopes were built up, but a little phone call might not be out of order, or a text saying, "You're doing brilliantly, but sorry, not this time".' [LNB]McCarthy (right) has been an international manager, so surely he understands. The long list is the equivalent of the text that says a player is doing brilliantly. If Capello then has to explain the final cut to each man individually - even those, like Jarvis, who are a twinkle in the eye in terms of international football - he will spend more time tapping away on his BlackBerry than a teenager with the dish on the new girl in school. There is so much more to Capello's job than that, as McCarthy of all people should know. [LNB]Not to mention Steve Bruce, who also criticised the beleaguered England manager for his use of Jordan Henderson. 'You can't just let him sit in midfield because you won't get the best out of him,' said the Sunderland manager. 'You have got to let him go and rampage about the pitch.' [LNB]Isn't that just what we need? Roy of the Rovers, mark 426. Have you noticed that all English football seems to produce is midfield rampagers? Steven Gerrard rampages, so does Frank Lampard, not to mention Gareth Barry. All we want to do is run, run, run. Nobody thinks. Nobody stops. Nobody exercises a little self-control. [LNB]Germany, Spain, France, Italy, all of the countries who know how to win the odd tournament do not have this problem. They have players who know how to run a game, rather than run themselves into the ground. If Henderson is as good as Bruce believes, he should be able to play both roles.[LNB] [LNB]AND WHILE WE'RE AT IT...Questions were asked this week after the Glazers repaid their controversial PIK loans (without using club money, the gloomy forecast of various experts and opportunists). [LNB]Some people are never satisfied, though. 'Where did they find £220million? At what interest rate did they borrow it? When does it need to be paid back?' asked a newspaper that was losing £100,000 a day last year, but somehow kept publishing. [LNB]The answer is simple: mind your own business. Since when was a say in the interest arrangements of a private company included in the price of a season ticket? [LNB]Turn up, don't turn up. Cheer the team, boo the team. But this level of interference was never part of the bargain, no more than the Glazers would have the right to ask any Manchester United supporter how he afforded the price of admission.[LNB] Platini is way off line againMichel PlatinI, president of UEFA, has again been treating us to the benefit of his wisdom in a newspaper interview.[LNB]It is standard that Platini is questioned in an atmosphere of awestruck reverence, allowing him an easy ride on financial fair play regulations, but what is remarkable is how often he is allowed to spout factual as well as philosophical nonsense uncontested. [LNB]Here is Platini (right) opposing the use of video replay technology and citing Frank Lampard's goal that wasn't in the World Cup against Germany as his example. 'When Lampard's shot crossed the line, the ball bounced back into the hands of the goalkeeper who kicked it out and 10 seconds later Germany scored. What do you do? Do you bring play back? And perhaps there was a foul before Lampard's shot? Do you bring the play back to there, or even further because there should have been a corner. For me, that would be a disaster.' [LNB]No, what is a disaster is to have the UEFA president pontificating on subjects of major importance when he can't remember what happened. Ten seconds between Lampard's shot and Germany's next goal? Try 28 minutes. Lampard's effort, with England trailing 2-1 was 39 minutes; Germany's third goal was in the 67th minute. [LNB]Platini's point is moot because Lampard's goal would not have been subject to replay technology, but instant goal-line technology. This is quite different, because it is black and white and has no restart complexities. Yet, as usual, Platini gets away with a specious argument and not a murmur of dissent, even when the logic he uses to justify it is bogus. [LNB]This is the mind that roams wild around football's biggest issues. We are informed Platini is a civilised chap, well versed in Michelin restaurants and fine wines. Maybe he could cook us an omelette instead.[LNB] During World War Two, the islanders of Melanesia, a sub-region of Oceania north and north-east of Australia, were witness to the largest war fought between technologically advanced countries. Japanese and American planes landed frequently carrying equipment and supplies. [LNB]As missionaries and colonial authorities had been evacuated from the area there was no way of communicating with the tribal people, who only knew that food and equipment, such as road-hardy vehicles, came from the sky. [LNB]After the war, when the soldiers had left, the cargo bounty dried up and in an effort to make it reappear, the locals imitated what they had seen. They would dress as soldiers and march on parade with wooden imitation guns, carve wooden headsets, sit in rough-hewn pretend control towers and clear strips of land to await the arrival of the planes. [LNB]Obviously, none came. But such behaviour has a name: it is a cargo cult. A religious or magical ritual intended to replicate sophisticated behaviour in the hope of receiving gifts from above. Avram Grant is a cargo cult manager. [LNB]Looking at him on the touchline as West Ham United surrendered to Liverpool on Saturday (right), he was imitating all the behaviour he sees in Premier League managers, but without the vital ingredient of purpose. He would rise from the bench, as managers do, and walk into the technical area, as managers do, and in that way he would look just like a real manager. [LNB]Yet, as it was with the Melanesian islanders, no planes will land, because no connection is made. Once there, Grant stands. He does not communicate; he does not instruct or change. He merely observes, mute, for a while before shuffling back to his post. It is cargo cult management. And it will get West Ham relegated, as it did Portsmouth, unless the owners admit a grave mistake has been made and act swiftly.[LNB] [LNB] [LNB] Explore more:People: John Terry, David Beckham, Michael Ballack, Mick McCarthy, Gareth Barry, Luiz Felipe Scolari, Steven Gerrard, Steve Bruce, Frank Lampard, Matt Jarvis, Roman Abramovich, Carlo Ancelotti Places: Liverpool, London, Newcastle, Milan, France, Germany, Mexico, Australia, Thailand, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, South Africa, Europe Organisations: Football Association
