Paul Canoville Interview on This Season and Last for Chelsea FC

Paul Canoville is a Chelsea legend, spending five years with the club during the early 1980s.

He was a left-sided winger, and made almost 80 appearances for the Blues, scoring 11 times.

Canoville is still to this day a Chelsea fan; he is still active within the club as well as being involved in important charity work through the Guy Mascolo Football Charity organisation.

Paul follows Chelsea religiously, and he gives his views on Chelsea’s recent European success and his thoughts on this season below.

Q: What should Chelsea be aiming for this season, in Europe and domestically?

Paul Canoville: Win all competitions and the league, as well as playing exciting football—this is what the chairman wants. Since the Champions League final, all the talk has been about whether Di Matteo will continue as manager. Some say he has proved that he is the right man for the job, which I think he has done. He has managed to win the FA Cup and the Champions League, which no man has managed to do at Chelsea before.

Q: Now that Di Matteo has been offered the job, do you think he will adapt this attractive playing style?

PC: Yes, most definitely. Di Matteo has been at the club a long time and knows about the history of Chelsea. Of course there are some older players who will know that they will soon be moving on, and young players will be coming in, and it’s Di Matteo’s job to find these players. There was a split in the players when Di Matteo took over, and he has managed to gel the team together and get them playing with confidence, which is what he needed to do.

Q: You mentioned players coming in. Are there any players you think need to leave the club?

PC: I don’t think it’s a case of needing to leave, but some players will know that they have reached their peak and can move on. I’m not the chairman or the manager, so I don’t have to make these decisions. There are some players who are coming to the end of their Chelsea time and will want two more years, but they won’t be getting two years, so they have to think about their future away from Chelsea.

Q: What areas of the pitch do you think Chelsea need strengthening in?

PC : Right-back is one area; left-back we’ve got Cole, so there’s no problems there; and maybe one player in midfield. When Ramires came in, I can’t lie, I had my doubts about him, but seeing him play, he’s changed my mind. He runs like a horse box to box and has been really good all year. You could say Lampard is on his way out, but if he keeps himself injury free, then I think he’s got a couple more seasons in him, and the same goes for John Terry. I think we will definitely be seeing some new faces, and knowing the chairman, he will hopefully be providing the money.

Q: Do you think Chelsea’s Champions League victory will help them sign the highest-quality new players?

PC: Definitely. I mean, who wouldn’t want to come to Chelsea? Now [that] we’re European champions, it shows we’re a club with ambition, and of course we’ve got the money, so I don’t see why any player wouldn’t want to come here!

Q: Do you fancy Chelsea’s chances of retaining the Champions League?

PC : Of Course, I always fancy Chelsea’s chances in any competition. We do tend to start slow in Europe, but we always seem to get a kick up the backside and start playing, and when we do play, then all sides fear us.

Q: What are your thoughts on overseas media branding Chelsea a ‘disgrace to football’ and saying that they didn’t deserve to win the Champions League with such defensive tactics?

PC : It doesn’t bother me. We had a game plan in the final, which was to defend, and we did it well. Bayern had their chances, and they didn’t take them. Chelsea got the win, and it wasn’t pretty, but they did it. Chelsea defended well throughout the game. When Bayern scored, we had to chase the game, and we eventually got the goal we needed. Even in extra time, they had their chances, they missed a penalty and then I thought that this must be our time, and it was.

Q: Would you rank last season as the most incredible in Chelsea’s history?

PC : It will go down in history for sure, but incredible? No. It was a season of two halves. I’m not going to lie, in the first half we were poor. We were lucky that we had Di Matteo, who could step in and get the players playing again, and well, we know the rest.

Q: Your old team, Reading, have been promoted to the top flight. How do you see theirs and the other promoted teams' seasons going?

PC: Reading will be buzzing, that’s for sure, but so will all the other teams coming up. There is always a difficult adjustment period for teams joining the Premier League, but as we’ve seen this year with all three teams staying up, teams are managing to adapt quicker and quicker.

Q: Do you think this season could be as exciting as last season?

PC: Definitely. With new players coming in, and quality players, and not just at Chelsea, I’m going to be watching the whole league!

For more information on Canoville and his charity work, you can visit his website www.paulcanoville.com, where you can also read his award-winning autobiography, “Black and Blue,” which documents his amazing career and time at Chelsea.

Greg Probert is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were obtained first-hand.