Slipperduke
The Camden Cad
If Luiz Felipe Scolari has learned anything in his first month in English football, it's that Sir Alex Ferguson doesn't waste any time in welcoming new rivals to the Premier League. The Manchester United manager's snipe about Chelsea players and their advanced ages came whizzing in under radar to hit home yesterday.
"Chelsea are an experienced side and I don't see outstanding progress coming from a team in their 30s," he told a press conference in South Africa. ""I'm not concerned about Chelsea...it's hard to see where there is going to be an improvement. Maybe they have reached a plateau."
Certainly Ferguson knows all about the longevity of star players, having built and then dismantled four of the best teams in Premier League history, but you might question his wisdom in goading a major rival during the build-up to a new season. After all, there's nothing that motivates an old player more than the publicly expressed opinion that he is over the hill.
This will be a nerve-racking season for Chelsea fans because their fortunes really could go either way. Under the awkward stewardship of Avram Grant they certainly racked up results, but rarely looked convincing as they did so. The excellent London Sunday Times journalist David Walsh put it best when he said, "It was hard to explain to those who hadn’t experienced Grant at first hand why the new man just wasn’t going to work out. After games, he sat before the journalists...you listened and wondered how Chelsea’s players could survive five consecutive days of this, let alone five months."
Now they have a man that you cannot help but listen to. Scolari is everything that Grant was not. Successful, charismatic, experienced, strong and indomitable. He has inherited a first class squad of admittedly maturing winners, but he has shown in his time with Brazil and Portugal that he has outstanding leadership qualities and excellent man-management skills. He's also shown that he's quite handy in a fist fight, which will go down very in London.
His greatest challenge will be to press his authority upon the squad. When Jose Mourinho departed last season, he left a huge power vacuum behind him. Installing Grant to plug that gap was like trying to fill a room with the contents of a single tube of toothpaste. In the absence of a true leader, the players have grown more powerful and less likely to bow to an outsider. Scolari needs a call to arms, something that the players can unite behind. Something to make them focus. Something like, erm, one of their major rivals writing them off as being too old to challenge for the title, perhaps?
Only time will tell us whether or not the appointment of the notoriously volatile Brazilian will be a glowing success or another failed attempt to replace the greatest manager in Chelsea's history. For what it's worth, I suspect that his presence will start steadily, but will eventually herald a new era of glory at Stamford Bridge, and it should bring us some more exciting football as well. One thing is for sure though. By writing off Chelsea as being too old for the fight, Ferguson has made Scolari's first team-talk an awful lot easier.
"Chelsea are an experienced side and I don't see outstanding progress coming from a team in their 30s," he told a press conference in South Africa. ""I'm not concerned about Chelsea...it's hard to see where there is going to be an improvement. Maybe they have reached a plateau."
Certainly Ferguson knows all about the longevity of star players, having built and then dismantled four of the best teams in Premier League history, but you might question his wisdom in goading a major rival during the build-up to a new season. After all, there's nothing that motivates an old player more than the publicly expressed opinion that he is over the hill.
This will be a nerve-racking season for Chelsea fans because their fortunes really could go either way. Under the awkward stewardship of Avram Grant they certainly racked up results, but rarely looked convincing as they did so. The excellent London Sunday Times journalist David Walsh put it best when he said, "It was hard to explain to those who hadn’t experienced Grant at first hand why the new man just wasn’t going to work out. After games, he sat before the journalists...you listened and wondered how Chelsea’s players could survive five consecutive days of this, let alone five months."
Now they have a man that you cannot help but listen to. Scolari is everything that Grant was not. Successful, charismatic, experienced, strong and indomitable. He has inherited a first class squad of admittedly maturing winners, but he has shown in his time with Brazil and Portugal that he has outstanding leadership qualities and excellent man-management skills. He's also shown that he's quite handy in a fist fight, which will go down very in London.
His greatest challenge will be to press his authority upon the squad. When Jose Mourinho departed last season, he left a huge power vacuum behind him. Installing Grant to plug that gap was like trying to fill a room with the contents of a single tube of toothpaste. In the absence of a true leader, the players have grown more powerful and less likely to bow to an outsider. Scolari needs a call to arms, something that the players can unite behind. Something to make them focus. Something like, erm, one of their major rivals writing them off as being too old to challenge for the title, perhaps?
Only time will tell us whether or not the appointment of the notoriously volatile Brazilian will be a glowing success or another failed attempt to replace the greatest manager in Chelsea's history. For what it's worth, I suspect that his presence will start steadily, but will eventually herald a new era of glory at Stamford Bridge, and it should bring us some more exciting football as well. One thing is for sure though. By writing off Chelsea as being too old for the fight, Ferguson has made Scolari's first team-talk an awful lot easier.
