Mourinho takes over at Inter Milan – As predicted

Well, as I announced last week, Mourinho took over the Inter Milan coaching role yesterday.
Inter, dissapointed at their champions league performances in recent years thought Mourinho was the man to take them on to that next step and rumours are circulating that he’s got about £100 million to spend. My sources also tell me that Inter hurried along the sacking of Mancini and the public announcement of Mourinho being the new boss at the request of Mourinho who was keen to be unveiled before Euro 2008 kicks off in 4 days time. No doubt he’ll be building a bit of a shopping list during the tournament.

Also as I mentioned last week he is apparantly looking at his old favourites Didier Drgba and Frank Lampard and sounding them out about moves to Milan.
Another source has told me that Mourinho will off load Viera, as he does not rate the French man which may see the former Arsenal defender return to the Premier League and with Man City looking like they intend to make heavyweight changes over the summer, they may be candidates.

 

 

Chelsea Fc – Managerless, who will touch them?

With the departure of Avram Grant this week I can’t help but think that the Chelsea managers job, although probably one of the most financially rewarding jobs in world football, is going to be harder to fill than people might think.

When Mourinho left the club and Avram Grant was given the position of Chelsea Manager, I was quite shocked.
I knew about his background in football, his domestic success in Israel proved he was an intelligent manager, but still to suddenly be instilled as manager of Chelsea in their position at the time raised my eyebrows more than a little.

After a couple of months in the job Avram had quietly stamped his own feel to the squad, continued to grind out decent results and more importantly and remarkably began to win over the Chelsea faithful who still pined for their maestro Jose.

There was none of the controversy from Grant that Jose had following him around. In fact from what I saw over the last season Avram Grant conducted himself impeccably, he finally got Ballack playing football again, something he hadn’t done so far in his time at Chelsea, and more remarkably he dragged Chelsea in the final weeks to compete point for point with what I believe to be the best Manchester United team Sir Alex Ferguson has ever assembled.

Add to that a first ever champions league final appearance that went down to the lottery that is penalties and I’d say it was a remarkable season for Chelsea and Avram Grant. I’m not even going to mention the carling cup final!!

But Mr Abrahomivich wants more, he wants all those trophies and more and unfortunatley he seems to surround himself with people who will say anything to keep him happy. I am absolutely positive Roman has not got to where he is in life through being easily led by hangers on but football is a million miles away from the oil business and he needs to identify an asset when he has it.

So there are a few names in the hat for the job but there’s certainly nobody banging on the Chelsea door shouting “Give it to me!” which has got to be a worry for the Chelsea fans. Rikjaard has been mentioned which I think is ridiculous, he’s just pulled apart the spirit of a great Barcelona team much as he did in the Holland camps when he was a player. Mark Hughes?? well I am a massive fan of Sparky but would he really allow the Chelsea board to control him as much as they like to control a man, he didn’t let it happen for Wales!

So whilst I’m sure there will be plenty of people knocking on Mr Grants door offering him lucrative contracts I’m not too sure there will be as big a queue knocking at the bridge.

So I guess it’s true money can’t buy everything……yet!