Two goals on your homecoming to manchester City and then what happens, they go and splash out £32 million on Robinho. There were more than a few echoes of Roman Abramovich’s early spending on his arrival at Chelsea because surely Wright-Phillips and Robino are very similar styles of player? Except one can control the ball.
Personally, Roman, I think footballers are overated,Roman… compared to a Gaugin or a Picasso…
Roman Abramovich’s new set of living cufflinks in Daria Dasha Zhukova, does not seem to have a lot to say for herself in what is supposedly her uber-cool LA drawl. She once gave a Maria Antoinette party at the Grosvenor House and spent the whole evening chain smoking with friends from a balcony and not talking to anyone. Last month she gave another party in a converted bus depot in Moscow which she plans to turn into the Center for Contemporay Culture Moscow, which rather unoriginally translates as Garage.
Russian she may be but having been brought up her molecular biologist mother in California, little Dasha has an American take on a party. Guests had to pay their own fares and hotels for their tickets. But then Dasha needed somewhere to show her £17m Lucian Freud and £43.6m Bacon, other art nick nacks and it was here that Amy Winehouse was dragged out of the Monarch in Camden Town to be flown for a little soulful warbling for another £1million and returned for more rehab. Some say she is shy, some say she is private, some say the body language with Abramovich is poor, some say they will marry in October. One thing is for sure, their world is a state secret. Abramovich does not mix with her set.
When she does talk it tends to be in clichés:
“I want to start a dialogue with a Russian audience,”
“We hope to attract all kinds of people, even those who know nothing about contemporary art.”
But she moves in the most noted of circles – dinner with Stella McCartney, a tempestuous on off relationship with the tennis player Marat Safin, pals with Princess Caroline of Monaco’s children, British aristos Sophia Hesketh and Ed Spencer Churchill.
And she is no airhead. She has a degree, albeit in alternative therapies. Her fledgling fashion line, Kova & T’s PVC tights became an overnight fashion hit. Currently the style store in Moscow and her other projects involve a team of more than 70. And through the fashion pages and contexts she has a boutique list of clients for her clothes, which are often punkily T shirts and jeans only.
And she is acclimatised to the heady world of Russian oligarchy. Daddy Alexander is almost as rich as Abramovich and the same age, although those who have met the 26 year old say she could pass for 10 years older. Abramovich is 42.
She moves a lot - Moscow, Paris, New York, the south of France and reputedly was introduced to Abramovich at the Barcelona v Chelsea game which coincided with Jose Mourinho’s and others paranoia about the owner no longer coming to football matches for a while. Answer : he was in his helicopter with Daria and his dascha with Dasha.
And she has a certain Tsarina’s demeanour…but then paying off his last wife cost more than $1billion, so maybe he is no rush, this time.
Frank Lampard is physically an exceptional footballer. Until last season the 30 year old barely missed a game. His coverage of the picth in a normal 90 minutes exceeds nearly every player in the Premier League. But the rub is that he is 30. Chelsea’s capitulation in giving him a five year deal is an odd call. the more so as he is not the only thirtysomething around Stamford Bridge these days. Deco is 30. Didier Drogba is 30. This is a good team but as Sir Alec Ferguson has pointed out you don’t win championships with old players, especially considering the intensity of Premiership football.
Euro 2008 was a clear pointer to the fact that youth can prevail in the likes of Holland and Russia. across town Arsene Wenger, that most intellectual of football coaches, has plainly committed the club to youth. And it makes good business sense. Today he sold right back Justin Hoyte to Middlebrough. Hoyte is 23 and has been with the club since he was 11. Arsenal also received a percentage of the money that Spurs spent on David Bentley. Wenger’s policy is good business and produces good football. And he has not been scared to pay the money for teenagers like Theo Walcott and Aaron Ramsay.
Lampard’s deal values him notionally at £30million which is rather more than Jose Mourinho would have paid to take him to Internazionale Milan, although Chelsea perhaps consider that anyone else they might have brought in would have cost similar in wages plus the transfer fee. Lampard said he was very happy. You bet, Frank. There a reccession on the way, unemployment is rising and you just trousered £30million.
Lampard has always been a lucky player for Chelsea. A great many of his long speculative shots have caught a fortunate deflection. He almost plays for it. This is the luck that deserts him when he puts on an England shirt. Roman Abramovich better trust he bought the lucky Lampard and that as has happened with England and Steven Gerrard the Chelsea midfield is not now so crowded he will get shunted out of the play.
The big man Felipe Scolari arrives at Stamford Bridge this week and who knows what he and Roman Abramovich have cooked up? First he inherits a good team, a team that missed out on winning the European Champions League by one penalty miss. A team that tracked a rampant and very fine Manchester United side to the last minutes of the 2007/8 season. However good or bad Avram Grant was as a manager, this team knows what to do. They still have it instilled in them from the Jose Mourinho era. A bit of man management to get the best out of one or two underperformers and they could be an outstanding team taking everything that moves. How quickly Scolari can get things moving is critical but the English players at least will be fresh from a summer by the pool. On the other hand knowing how capricious Abramovich could be the stable ship could be unsettled by multiple comings and goings just to please the owner who wants a new train set.
At the back they don’t have problems although the flying Portugese right back Jose Boswinga is a luxurious addition. Claude Makele’s age is not an issue with either Michael Essien or John Obe Mikel more than capable of being the enforcers. Indeed when Grant bought Nicolas Anelka in the transfer window many wonderered if he could even risk playing 4-2-4 with Drogba and Anelka up front, two wingers and the African hard men in the middle. It would have been brave, but it would have been electric football. The question is more to do with those wingers. In Mourinho’s first season it was Arjen Robben and Damien Duff, both now sold. Although they got good money for Robben to Real Madrid, as the Dutch found out in Euro 2008 he does not always turn up fit enough to play. But Florent Malouda was no substitute for them, Nor was Shaun Wright Phillips who flattered against the lesser teams and against the big teams just passed the ball straight back to the opponents. Joe Cole as other managers have noticed is not really a winger and has never quite found the best position for his talents.
Strangely in midfield Scolari could afford to let Frank Lampard go which would free up the shape of the team. In Michael Ballack he has a class operator going forward.
So does Scolari stick with what he has or twist on a few fancy purchases? By general assent there are too many players at Chelsea and some have to go. The big decision must be Didier Drogba who annoyed the faithful by getting sent off in the Champions League Final, but he is 30 and maybe only has one more year at the top level. Unfortunately for him the Milan rumours have it that Mourinho’s new Internazionale are well endowed with strikers where it is the other Milan club AC that need a strike force to team up with Kaka and the young Pato.
But there is another factor which in football terms runs deep. It was Lampard’s goals from midfield and Drogba’s explosiveness on which much of Chelsea’s success was based. Losing two such talismen sounds like a bad omen. Portsmouth are 8/1 to win at Stamford Bridge on the first day of the season. Stranger things have happened. Let the samba begin.
Bet on Chelsea to win the the Premiership
Bet Chelsea
