Avram Grant has just written a fascinating article for this website, published here in the Guest Writer section, where he talks about the challenge of implementing change at Chelsea...

The former Chelsea boss also talks candidly about his long term vision for that club and his justifiable frustration at not being given the time to see his ideas come to fruition.

Avram`s article has reminded me of one of the most interesting debates we have had in the blog recently, which was prompted by my observation that we are sometimes deprived of independent thought in the modern media. Collective thinking seems to be the order of the day and if ever we needed an example of how, like a shoal of fish we are first led one way, and then the other by a press that has the power to decide who we should hate – and then subsequently fall in love with – then this week`s outpourings of collective grief over the death of an individual we were once taught to vilify shows just how pervasive this culture has become.

You are probably wondering what that has to do with Avram Grant.

The Israeli understood something that Brian Clough did not. As anyone who has just seen or read The Damned United will tell you, Clough`s decision to tell the Leeds players that everything they previously represented was wrong and that they must discard everything they thought they had achieved, meant that he lasted just 44 days in the job at Elland Road. Whereas Clough smashed up the office of his predecessor, Avram Grant understood that he could not set about immediately dismantling the legacy of Mourinho. He believed that the transformation of Chelsea should be a gradual, long term process. He was subsequently given 8 months in which to do so: seemingly a long time in football and a lifetime at Stamford Bridge.

 What was Avram Grant`s crime? According to the Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck: “We have very high expectations at Chelsea and a couple of second place finishes is just not good enough for us. So although we never would have thought in September when Mourinho left that we would be able to make it into a Champions League final as we did – and that is fantastic – Chelsea are here to win trophies.” So, despite the fact that Avram Grant exceeded expectations, he lost his job because another team was marginally better – or marginally luckier on the day – than his team was.

If Lampard or Anelka had found the net instead of the post at the Champions League final, or if Heskey had not scored the goal of his life in the 1-1 draw with Wigan – would that have made Grant a better manager? According to Buck, it would have done – because according to everyone else, especially the press, Grant was now a loser. We have reached the stage where it has little to do with how well you do your job: appearance and perception are everything.

To be fair, we are also guilty of this in Spain as well. Very recently, after spending most of the season kicking his heels on the bench at Barcelona, Bojan Krkic finally got the opportunity to start a match, in place of the rested Eto`o. Bojan scored twice.

At the moment, in the eyes of the Catalan press, Pep Guardiola is a winner: a hero who can do no wrong and every decision is proof of his genius. In the eyes of the Barcelona faithful – including Lee, who the edits this site with me -   Pep can walk on water. Consequently, the loyal Catalan sports press saw the decision to play Bojan as a perfect example of how to manage a young player: Guardiola`s decision to play him in that particular game was described as a masterstroke. And so it was that Bojan`s brace was conclusive proof that Pep is a genius.

But what if the Barcelona coach were public enemy number one? What if, in the local press, he was more Grant than Mourinho? Then it would have undoubtedly been decreed that Guardiola got it wrong: that after forcing the young striker to spend the season in purgatory, stifling his development and shredding  his confidence, the fact that when Bojan finally gets his chance to play, he scores twice,  provides the damning evidence that Guardiola has no idea what he is doing. Same scenario, two different interpretations.



In our recent discussion in the blog, it seems that we have allowed others to decide for us that one particular team is `boring` – despite scoring more goals than any other team in the league this season. We have also decided that one man`s `rant` is the sign of another man`s mastery of mind games. When one storms off refusing to talk to the press, or flies in to a rage, it is a carefully controlled psychological tool and an indicator of the man`s intellectual dominance over the rest of us; when another man betrays the slightest emotion, well he`s cracking up ain`t he.

One of our readers a Liverpool fan - commented in that discussion that if Benitez loses the title this season: “he should be sacked - he has failed.”  I wonder, if Liverpool finish the season on 84 points and win the title, does this make Benitez a better manager than if he finishes the season on 84 points, missing out on the title by a single point because United draw, rather than lose a particular game?
 
How do we define success and failure?

Avram Grant lost two league games all season at Chelsea. He finished second, two points behind Manchester United on 85 points – possibly more than enough points to win the title this season. He lost the Champions League final by a matter of inches, by a skewed shot. According to his employers, he lost his job because he did better than they expected, but someone else did better than he did. According to the fans, he wasn`t Jose. According to the press he was neither flavour of the month nor sexy enough.

When did we stop defining people by what they do, and start judging them by what other people think of them... 

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Read "Changing Chelsea" by Avram Grant