As I trudged away from the Moscow final in the pouring rain, I got a text from an Arsenal work colleague taking the piss.
Now, 14 years later, did I take the moral high ground and commiserate with him?
No, did I bollocks!
Found him on LinkedIn & gave him both barrels.
#karma
Year 4 of Clearlake has Chelsea on 48 points, in 9th place in the table after £1.8 billion spent on players. Truly by far the worst ownership in sports.
When I posted a few weeks ago that the club no longer embodies any of the values most decent people have, this is the sort of thing I had in mind. Wow.
They came into a debt free club with a completely blank slate and within 4 years they’ve managed to break the record for highest loss in the history of football. Actually think about that for a second. That is absolutely incredible.
K!net!c academy is a hotbed of... talent!
Many new, fresh faces leading the Chelsea academy have roots here, or have left & worked with each other, that’s normal in many industries! This video presents publicly available career information and does not allege any misconduct.
I’m French so my situational / cultural opinion is worth more as a matter of fact. France has a complex relation to competence from overseas. No matter who you are, you’ll be questioned from an administrative (Tuchel had to do a 3 day crash course to update his diplomas) or personality standpoint. Ancelotti gave up, Emery was hounded out.
France as a collective is absolutely brutal with their own glories (Laurent Blanc), but can also fall in love with Bielsa (Marseille).
And it’s not just “you lost a game, you don’t know what you’re doing” but brutal character assassination empowered by the total absence of press libel laws, and writer’s emphasis on double entendre. They’ll attack you on angles that other countries legally don’t allow.
The elephant in the room : Rosenior is from Sierra-Leone descent. There hasn’t been any instance (that I am aware of) of racism, or racist undertones. And then again, France has a grey area or window trivialising the boundary between “banter” and “offensive” that’s extremely wide.
Rosenior hasn’t got to “do more” to avoid it. In any case, whether he was out of his depth (like Patrick Kisnorbo was at Man City’s partner club was) or highly competent (Vieira finishing in European places for Nice with 38 goals scored) – there’s no place for it.
But I also believe that Rosenior’s demeanour, honesty, natural way of speaking facts and not gaslight the fans based on what they see is what made people stand their positions and not turn against him. The majority acknowledge he’s an employee who does his job honestly and fairly.
Enzo Maresca and Mauricio Pochettino were partially chosen by Chelsea because of their ability to work within a structure.
If they're both falling out with you and growing fed up, the problem probably isn't just them!
What does it say when the “perfect project manager” according to the people who hired him has trouble with the exact project he was deemed perfect for?