Andre Villas-Boas: Why Sacking the Manager Will Not Bring Chelsea Success

When Andre Villas-Boas was appointed Chelsea manager in 2011, it marked the beginning of a three-year redevelopment project at Stamford Bridge.

Yesterday saw that very project come to an abrupt end after only eight months.

On the surface, Villas-Boas’ statistics are unquestionably not good enough. In 40 games as manager, the 33-year old-only managed to earn 19 wins and 11 draws. Defeat at West Brom on Saturday was Chelsea’s 10th of the season, a statistic that lead AVB to declare that the Blue’s form has "not been good enough for some time."

"Every defeat piles more pressure on any Chelsea manager. We don't win enough and that does not make us proud," he admitted.

After ruthlessly dismissing Carlo Ancelotti for a trophy-less season, Abramovic’s slowness to sack AVB suggested the owner was prepared to be more patient with the 34-year-old than previous bosses. Perhaps the Russian billionaire recognized the difficulty of the task facing the Portuguese coach.

Player revolt was not enough to convince him to part ways with AVB, a fact shown by Frank Lampard’s claim that AVB’s management style was "not ideal." Instead, it is the fear of not qualifying for the Champions League that prompted him to act.

His removal as manager will not cover up the gaping weaknesses within Chelsea’s squad. The team has been left to age since the departure of Jose Mourinho in 2008 and it seems that the egos of some of their top stars have grown bigger than the club’s trophy cabinet.

The players that once delivered Chelsea fans a plethora of titles have now become a stumbling block for Chelsea’s future ambitions.

The foundations are rotting and urgent repair work is needed if the Blues are to win trophies soon. Juan Mata and Daniel Sturridge are little more than a veneer of flair, the spine of the team needs to be changed. 

Florent Malouda looks like he wishes to be anywhere else than on the pitch. John Terry has once again brought the club into disrepute following his racism row with Anton Ferdinand. Didier Drogba’s goal scoring form has all but deserted him. Ashley Cole’s hunger to get forward seems to have diminished. Frank Lampard’s fitness seems to be eluding him.

Rebuilding the team will not be cheap or easy, and it seems that Abramovic has become confused over what Chelsea’s ambitions are. Short-term success or long-term stability?

When Andre Villas-Boas arrived at Chelsea, it was obvious that Carlo Ancelotti’s squad was not good enough to compete for silverware. New talent was needed, but void of the capture of Juan Mata and Raul Mereiles (who has been nothing but a disappointment), no new life was invested into the Chelsea first team.

The captures of Romelu Lukaku, Thibaut Courtois, Kevin de Bruyne and Lucas Piazón, as well as developing talent of Josh McEachran, Ryan Bertrand, Jeffrey Bruma and Gael Kakuta, suggest that there is one eye on future development at Stamford Bridge. However, such players are not yet in a position to bring success to Chelsea.

Such a dilemma left AVB in an impossible. His Champions League experiment against Napoli showed that he recognized Chelsea’s leading stars had to be slowly edged out of the first team. Yet following the defeat he faced public humiliation by having Roman Abramovic attend training sessions to monitor his training methods. On one hand, it seems that Chelsea want to build for the future, but not at the expense of immediate success. The Londoners cannot have both.

Chelsea can't develop without investing a degree of trust in youth. Mata and Sturridge can't carry the future of the club on their shoulders alone.

More young players need to gain top-level experience. Much of their fledgling talent has been loaned out, yet Ryan Bertrand, Romelu Lukaku and Lucas Piazón have found first team opportunities difficult, or impossible to come by despite the poor form of senior members of the squad. Perhaps AVB feared a potential backlash from the board if the results did not deliver. Or maybe the discontent in the dressing room was too hard to fight against. Either way, the next Chelsea manager will be greeted with a significant stumbling block from day one.

With all of this criterion flying around, AVB’s dismissal is undeniably harsh, but at the same time, the writing had been on the wall. It is strange that Abramovic has replaced the 34-year-old with Roberto Di Matteo—for an interim period at least.

When Scolari was replaced with Hiddink, it seemed that Abramovic had learned from the mistake of replacing Mourinho with an unknown quantity in Avram Grant. Di Matteo’s appointment seems to be a step backwards when Chelsea wants to move forwards.

As part of AVB’s regime, surely some of the hostility targeted towards the Portuguese manager will be diverted onto the former West Brom manager’s shoulders. Does this show that Chelsea has abandoned this season’s ambitions?

Chelsea are a club that clearly need to progress, but it seems that they are unsure or unwilling to suffer the period of transition that is a necessary condition for progress to happen. Almost all of their strategies have so far led to failure. AVB is another link in the chain of disappointment that includes Fernando Torres, Raul Mereiles, a trophy drought, limited youth opportunities and poor form from the club’s leading players.

Right now it appears that the throne at Stamford Bridge is a seat that would only appeal to the most desperate or egotistical of football managers. By that logic, it is unsurprising Rafael Benitez and Jose Mourinho are being touted as favorites for the job.