The Chelsea manager is having a rough time of it at the moment but when the bleakness of that home draw with Birmingham City on Saturday in the FA Cup fifth round threatened to overwhelm his club, Arsenal went one worse. Four hours later they were eliminated by Sunderland, thus blowing their chances of winning a first trophy in seven seasons.
Unfortunately for Villas-Boas, he does not have the track record in English football of Wenger, or the goodwill towards the Arsenal manager – albeit much of it is now running out. Let's face it, the young Chelsea manager may survive the season or he may catch a bad result against Napoli in the Champions League tomorrow that prompts Roman Abramovich to change his mind and sack his sixth manager.
If that happens, we may never get an answer to all those big questions: whether the job was too much too early for Villas-Boas; whether he was the right man in the right club at the wrong time or whether you can really manage Chelsea if you are two years younger than Hilario. But one thing is for sure, if he is going out, at least he is doing it his way.
The press conference Villas-Boas gave on Thursday made a good deal more sense than many of the pronouncements of his predecessors who found themselves caught between powerful players and a demanding owner. Villas-Boas stuck it straight to his Chelsea players when he said that he did not really care what they felt, as long as he had the backing of Abramovich.
"I'm not concerned about [what the players think]," Villas-Boas said. "I have the full backing of the owner and it is down to the owner to make the decision on how much further he wants to go with the running of the actual project... my authority is total, because it is the owner's authority."
Bravo, Andre. Someone had to say it. Slaying the beast of player power at Chelsea was never going to be easy but so much better to attempt to do so than just sit back, go with the flow and try, as other Chelsea managers have in the past, to placate both the bolshie dressing room and the demanding owner.
For those who diminish Villas-Boas one can only respectfully point out that a manager who is prepared to take a hard-line stance with the Chelsea dressing room is exactly what the club has been needing since Jose Mourinho's departure. Carlo Ancelotti might have coaxed one more great season out of what was essentially the Mourinho team in 2009-2010 but, ultimately, what good did it do him when they ran out of steam one season later?
It is curious that while everyone accepts that Chelsea's team has to be overhauled if it is to have any longevity, the first man attempting to do so without mollifying the established stars such as Frank Lampard, John Terry and Didier Drogba is held up as a figure of fun.
As for the players at Villas-Boas's disposal, his squad is essentially the same as Ancelotti's with the addition of Oriol Romeu, Juan Mata and Gary Cahill. Anyone can see that rebuilding Chelsea is going to take a good deal more resources. In the meantime it is hard going. Villas-Boas was jeered at Stamford Bridge on Saturday for substituting Mata and had to deny reports that Drogba had given the team talk at half-time.
If the price to pay for changing the club and ending the reliance on the old regime of players is one season without a trophy then, quite frankly, would not Chelsea supporters accept that? If it takes two seasons for Villas-Boas to make the transition from relying upon the old boys of the Mourinho era to building a solid base for the next generation then so be it.
It may seem harsh on the likes of Lampard and Drogba to find themselves left out of the team after all those years and all those goals, but that happens to be what football is all about. In the old days they would have been looking at the proverbial framed picture of a Spitfire, a testimonial and a sports shop in Hounslow. At least the modern game's rewards means that neither will ever have to work again if he so chooses.
As usual with Chelsea in the last three years, Guus Hiddink is the spectre at the feast – as if he is the solution to all the club's problems. If Hiddink was so serious about re-establishing himself as a manager in the top leagues in Europe then he would not have taken the Anzhi Makhachkala job. No one goes to Dagestan for the prestige and the glory – they go for the money.
Who knows if Abramovich will change his mind about backing Villas-Boas? Only Chelsea's owner has the answer to that question. In the meantime Villas-Boas has no choice but to press on, tell everyone that he has the owner's support, keep faith in what he is trying to do and, if it comes to that, at least go out on his own terms rather than trying to please both sides.
"Don't 'lose' the dressing room", so many managers are told, as if the players within it can withhold their favour like a whimsical Victorian benefactor. "Sod the power of the dressing room" is, effectively, what Villas-Boas said this week, "this is what we pay you for so get on with it." Sounds good to me.
Madness of last summer comes back to haunt Wenger
Dearie me, what a week for Arsenal. First Milan, then Sunderland and, if these things really do come in threes, you might wonder what lies in store for them when Tottenham Hotspur visit the Emirates on Sunday.
No one likes writing off Arsène Wenger, because he has proved such a prodigiously talented figure in the past, but the madness of last summer's transfer policy is starting to bite now. He must have known for months in advance, perhaps even a year, he was losing Cesc Fabregas, Samir Nasri and Gaël Clichy yet there was no long-term policy to replace them. So the question is, if Wenger stays, what is this summer's plan?
We're all in it together, even football clubs
It is a great shame that Rangers find themselves in such a desperate financial situation, not least for the supporters who, like those of any club in trouble, have the most to lose.
However, unpaid tax is not something about which football clubs should be permitted to negotiate as if they were a special case. Paying tax is not something that football clubs, whatever their history or their fame, should be able to do at their leisure. This seems to be overlooked in times of crisis. The unpaid tax is, after all, not Rangers' money: it has, effectively, been taken from you and me.
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