Wednesday 7th March

Did it really surprise anyone that Roman Abramovitch has sacked yet another manager – one has almost lost count since he parted ways with the ‘Special One.’  And what a sorry spectacle he has made of the once great Chelsea football club.  Exactly how this man came into his fortune is still shrouded in some mystery but like most of the Russian Oligarchs it was almost certainly by theft, even if the legal niceties had been observed.  Under Communism these industries were owned by the people and for the people, and now they are in the hands of a powerful few, and I suspect that the Russian people have come off rather badly.  And now the latest Tsar, Mr. Putin struts his bare-chested way on the international stage, another robber baron who nobody really respects at all.  What is it with these newly enriched men that they think that just because they are super-rich they can behave so disgracefully.

Buying oneself a football team is one thing, but throwing ones toys out of the pram time and time again when things don’t go ones way is pathetic.  And at last the true British reaction has come out in the open, and it is the one thing neither Mr. Putin nor Mr. Abramovitch can handle; ridicule.  Almost everyone now considers the man a buffoon, and except for a few die-hard fans, most consider Chelsea to be a bit of a joke too.  How could it happen that a man, who by whatever means, possessed of a fortune of staggering dimensions should have spent lavishly and built a very good team have ended up squandering it so badly.  It takes ineptitude of some enormity to have achieved that, or a belief in the power of money that transcends the need to actually be a decent human being.  I have no doubt that this is not the end of the saga, and it is entirely possible that Chelsea will rise again and becoming a great team, but whoever becomes his next manager will surely be making sure that his contract has a handsome clause for compensation if and when he is inevitably sacked early.  Why on earth else would anyone be slightly interested in working for such a detestable and laughable man.