33-year old Andres Villas-Boas worked for the club under Jose Mourinho and was heralded for his thorough game preparation, which has clearly been carried over to Porto where he won the league and UEFA cup during his first season in charge.
But if the young Porto manager's impending appointment as the new Chelsea boss raises few questions on a footballing level more serious questions do need to be asked about the Russian billionaire’s business acumen.
He has a history of iffy managerial appointments on a financial level. He managed to fall out with Jose Mourinho, the best manager in Chelsea history, because of his refusal to fund further transfers, and replaced him with Avram Grant. Genius. He then used his millions to employ Luis Felipe Scolari on a bumper salary, the highest in the world at the time, only to sack him after six months. He then failed to convince Guus Hiddink to stay and let him take over the Turkish national side after he won Chelsea the FA Cup. Carlo Ancelotti came, won the league and cup in his first season and was duly sacked this summer for failing to do the same again.
And it is not just in the managerial department where Abramovich has shown a lack of patience and often ludicrous abuse of his wealth.
He paid £50million for Fernando Torres, £30.8million for Andriy Shevchenko, a whopping £21million for Shaun Wright-Phillips, as well as stumping up £18 million for Yuri Zhirkov. Shevchenko then left the club on a free, Wright-Phillips at a loss of £13 million and Portuguese defender Ricardo Carvalho gave the club five seasons service for a loss of £13 million pounds, not including wages. The losses of the other two are yet to be felt.
Abramovich now wants to spend a figure around £13million to employ a manager who would probably still be working at the club had he managed to stay on side with Jose Mourinho.
In his reign in power, Abramovich’s millions have so far provided the club with three league wins, three FA Cup wins and two league cups.
But wiith the prospect of financial fair play rules being introduced by UEFA as of next season, the way he goes about sustaining that success needs to change. The squad currently contains a lot of senior players who at times last season showed their age, note the struggles over the christmas period. Abramovich will need to learn to kerb his excessive and ridiculous spending to ensure Chelsea are not the first club to be expelled from European competition. UEFA would love to make an example of an English club and if Abramovich carries on he could be the first victim.
Questions must be asked of the Russian if he continues with his recent lunacy. Initial plans to make the club self-sufficient are nowhere near fruition, and if the deal for Villas-Boas goes through Abramovich will again prove himself to have a distinct lack of understanding of football financing.
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