• John Terry to remain captain ‘as long as he performs’
• Portuguese aims to stamp his authority at Stamford Bridge
André Villas-Boas has set himself the ambitious task of transforming Chelsea’s players into “social role models” as he seeks to stamp his authority on powerful figures within the squad and revive the club after the least successful season of the Roman Abramovich era.
Chelsea’s seventh manager during the oligarch’s eight-year ownership acknowledged he must win silverware early in his tenure if he is to see out his £4.5m-a-year contract, which runs to 2013. Much will depend on the 33-year-old’s ability to eke the best from senior players at the club, some of whom are nearly as old as the Portuguese and worked with him in his previous capacity as an opposition scout.
Disaffection within the dressing room was instrumental in Luiz Felipe Scolari’s abrupt departure from Stamford Bridge two years ago yet, whereas the Brazilian’s reputation had been established as a World Cup-winning coach, Villas-Boas is confident he will be able to impose his thinking on the set-up at Chelsea despite boasting only 20 – albeit supremely successful – months as a manager with Académica and Porto.
“We have to raise players’ ambitions and motivations to be successful,” Villas-Boas said. “We can grab at the amount of trophies we have won in the last six years, and that is a good reference point, but we push ourselves now for a new challenge. The players are responsible and professional enough to respect the manager’s position. These are players who deserve respect from me, also, but we want them to triumph as people and as social role models. If they do that, they triumph as players out on the pitch as well.
“Most of them are experienced and have grown to think that talent is just talent, but we think there is something extra we can get out of them: by freeing them up and focusing on ambition and motivation. I have spoken already to a couple of the players on the phone and they told me this is like a fresh new start.”
That can be construed as a challenge thrown down to the senior squad to match the ambitions of a manager who was born five months after Sir Alex Ferguson won his first silverware, the Scottish First Division title with St Mirren in 1977. The idea that Villas-Boas can reinvent the image of the playing personnel is bold given the high-profile off-field controversies which have dogged the likes of John Terry and Ashley Cole in recent seasons.
There will be no pandering to egos within the squad. Terry, Villas-Boas said, would remain as captain only “as long as he can perform to the utmost of his ability, as he has in the last six years”. The notion that the team would be constructed around the £50m record signing Fernando Torres, who endured such a miserable first six months at Stamford Bridge last term, was jettisoned. “We faced a similar situation with [Radamel] Falcao at Porto, who didn’t find the net in pre-season and was frustrated, but we didn’t fine-tune the team to provide for him,” he said. “It’s about fine-tuning the whole organisation of the team.”
Such an approach will appeal to the hierarchy, who see in Villas-Boas a young, dynamic manager to contrast markedly with previous appointments, and a forward-thinker eager to impose his own ideas on the club from top to bottom. The Portuguese went against the wishes of his family by leaving the Estádio do Dragão to maintain a nomadic lifestyle that has taken him to London, Milan, Coimbra and Porto over the past four years. He likened that decision to giving up a “crazy” salary with Mourinho’s Internazionale to take up the reins at Académica, then bottom of the Portuguese top flight.
He suggested, too, that Porto had been willing to better the financial package on offer from Chelsea to retain him last week. His eventual departure provoked a furious reaction in his home town, with supporters dismayed that apparent pledges of loyalty after a treble-winning first season at Porto gave way to pure ambition. “There’s nothing I can say that will ease the fans’ sense of betrayal, but this was a challenge I had to take,” he said. Now he expects to be given the chance to thrive in London and will be hands-on in all aspects of the club.
While he intends to assess the playing squad from next week, he anticipates having a major say on incoming transfers, a role previously taken on by the departed sporting director, Frank Arnesen – Michael Emenalo is expected to be confirmed in a similar role this week – and has already succeeded in having the long-arranged pre-season friendly with Vitesse Arnhem on 9 July cancelled. The likes of Paul Clement, Bryan English and Glen Driscoll have already been moved on from the backroom staff with no ceremony, with Roberto Di Matteo confirmed as his No2 and Steve Holland promoted from reserve- to assistant first-team coach.
“For me, the thing is to be able to judge competence,” Villas-Boas said. “There’s nothing new in the idea that changes needed to happen. The people who have left did so after tremendous success, and we pay respect to them. Change happens in any structure. But we’ll try to implement a future for this club step by step. Hopefully, we will all be involved in that for the next three years or beyond.”
Abramovich, who sacked Carlo Ancelotti only 12 months after the Italian delivered Chelsea’s first league and cup Double, will expect instant results such as that suffered by his predecessor. “Who expects to stay as Chelsea manager if they don’t win anything?” he said. “You are expected to be successful straight away, to win straight away and on a weekly basis. There’s no running away from that challenge. That’s what I face. I’d be surprised to be kept on if I didn’t win. I
