• Chelsea manager to introduce players to backroom staff
• ‘We think there’s something extra we can get out of them’
André Villas-Boas will address his Chelsea first-team squad for the first time on Wednesday and stress a belief that he and his newly assembled backroom staff can draw “something extra” even from experienced players who have enjoyed glittering careers to bolster the club’s challenge for silverware next season.
The players, with the exception of Ramires and David Luiz who are competing with Brazil at the Copa América in Argentina, are due back at Cobham on Wednesday to begin preparations for the new campaign and will be welcomed by their new backroom personnel. Villas-Boas intends to call a team meeting where he will introduce his No2 Roberto Di Matteo, the physical fitness coach, José Mário Rocha, and the opposition scout, Daniel Sousa, all newly arrived or restored to the club, together with Steve Holland, promoted from reserve team coach, and explain to the players what duties each of his technical staff will undertake.
The 33-year-old’s message will echo the philosophy outlined last week when he was formally unveiled as Carlo Ancelotti’s successor at Stamford Bridge and this club’s seventh manager in eight years. Villas-Boas had stressed the staggering success he achieved with Porto last season – the club won the domestic title, cup and the Europa League – had been born of his staff’s ability to “free players’ decision-making”. “We can find things in players’ talent that they thought they didn’t have,” he said. “We think there’s something extra we can get out of them, so that is why we focus on ambition and motivation. That is the philosophy we have from top to bottom in all our departments. It is a question of creating empathy, motivation and raising ambitions in everybody.”
The manager believes he can eke out extra qualities from players who finished trophyless last term by using the same techniques, principles and attention to detail that stood him in such good stead at Porto. The squad will undertake double sessions from Wednesday until their departure for the club’s two-week pre-season tour of Malaysia, Thailand and Hong Kong on 17 July, with the playing staff to be subjected to fitness work this morning before undergoing the standard individual medical, visual and reaction time checks this afternoon as Chelsea gauge their condition.
The precise make-up of Villas-Boas’s staff will become clearer over the course of this week with Michael Emenalo, the Nigerian who had acted as an assistant first-team coach under Ancelotti last season, to be confirmed in an enhanced role akin to that of a sporting director, or director of football, in the next 24 hours. It remains to be seen what his duties will entail with the manager himself intending to play a hands-on role in out-going and in-coming transfers once he has assessed the merits of the players he has inherited from his predecessor over the next 10 days.
While there is interest in adding to the current squad – Tottenham’s Luka Modric, the Santos forward Neymar, Romelu Lukaka at Anderlecht and Radamel Falcao at Porto remain high-profile and expensive targets – there is no immediate sense of urgency to conclude deals with Villas-Boas still to judge first-hand the quality of those already at the club. One player who had been mooted as a potential target, the Benfica full-back Fábio Coentrão, is now out of Chelsea’s reach after signing a six-year contract at Real Madrid for a fee reported to be around £27m.
André Villas-BoasChelseaDominic Fifieldguardian.co.uk
