Why Chelsea (and Roman) should persist with André Villas-Boas

Chelsea around 18 months ago were on top of the world.  Or at least England.  The recent Double winners (the first time in their history) were being coached by one of the best managers in England in Ancelotti, the team was playing entertaining, high scoring and attacking football with scores showing their dominance in competition.  Then it all fell away.  They had a horrible run near the end of 2010 till 2011, didn't progress in the Champions League and spent a 50 million pound transfer fee (a record in English football for Torres) on one of the world's brightest stars who could not the find the net in a better squad.

Meanwhile a new manager at Porto, ironically enough Mourinho's start in top line management was also starting to make a mark, Andre-villas Boas (or AVB). But enough about the Mourinho comparisons and the fact he worked under him in a fair bit of his success. In his first season as manager of Porto they won 4 titles, the Portuguese Supercup, the Portugues Premiera Liga, the Portugues Cup and most importantly of all the UEFA Europa Cup the second biggest European competition outside the Champions League.  It was this that really brought him to everyones attention on the world stage. 


Porto played an entertaining brand of football also with exceptional defence that allowed them to remain undefeated throughout the season.  It was no surprise that notoriously restless Abramovich moved Ancelotti on and then splurged out the highest transfer fee for a manger in history to lure AVB down to Stamford Bridge.

When signed he seemed a breath of fresh air, combative, emotional highly studios and intelligent, but since the start of the season things haven't gone the way they promised.  Chelsea is in 5th position, unable to compete with the top 3 clubs in the league and dropping points against teams from eminently winnable positions. There are rifts within the squad and rumours of disenchantment with the manager, publicly from the likes of Chelsea legends such as Lampard and Anelka, the free-flowing style does not seem to be netting results and dammit Torres just cant seem to fire.

But despite the fact that firing AVB now will be the most expensive 1 season by a manager for a very long time,  the fact is that Chelsea is a team in transition.  Ultimately this is a team still slowly shedding the shells of mourinho's powerful consecutive Premier League winning team.  Some of the young players brought in such as Mata and Sturridge do genuinely look the future of the club and up to it.  Drogba, Lampard and Terry are still excellent players some of the best in England but eventually they will have to be moved on and results will suffer, because you can't lose quality such as that and expect a dip.   And it seems AVB is aware of this hence why the controversial benching of Drogba and Lampard which don't seem to help results but are a statement to the future.  A game one day hoped to be melded on the lovely Barcelona passing game. Lampard and Terry since being English are club legends so to keep them around would be a good idea but perhaps if Drogba wants good game time perhaps moving him on while his currency is still good could be an option.  What a player though.  AVB is slowly learning on the jobs, more about how to treat personalities in addition to tactics but if he lasts till next season the fruits of his labour might begin to ripen.