Updated Dec 6, 2010 8:05 PM ET

Money can do strange things to your mind.

It can make you feel invincible, untouchable and it can also lead to you believing that you know how to run a football club.

When Chelsea owner, Russian oligarch and 50th richest man in the world, Roman Abramovich first purchased the Blues from Ken Bates, he was content to watch the matches from his comfortable box and let the football people make the decisions. All he had to do was open up the cash spigot and let it flow.






Over a six-year period, the West Londoners became the toast of football. They made winning look easy and they did it with arrogance. But a funny thing happened on the way up to the stage to collect yet another trophy. The owner started believing he was the man responsible for the team’s success. So he sacked the best manager in the world and brought in his own puppets. Well, it turns out that running a club is not as easy as he thought.

When it’s your toy though, there is always the attraction to want to play manager every now and again. Since his tenure in West London, Abramovich has succumbed to its irresistible temptation on more than one occasion.

The results have usually proven disastrous and on each occasion he’s been forced to scurry back to ‘football people’ that ‘know the game’ in order to repair the situation. Whether he’ll do so this time is the burning question on the minds of all Chelsea fans.

Since the firing of assistant coach, Ray Wilkins, the team has gone into a tailspin of epic proportions. With only one win in their last six Premiership matches, the club has slipped from first to third. With Spurs, Manchester United and Arsenal coming up in a trifecta that would test them at their best, there are legitimate fears that the season that began in glorious sunshine and scintillating fashion will freeze over in December.

In fact, I hope you’ve packed some thermal underwear and a copy of Solzhenitsyn’s 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich' if you want to hang out with Abramovich because I think he’s looking firmly back east to Moscow and that his crush on Chelsea is all but over.

Of course his parting gift will be to sell off any shining baubles that still have value, because he sure doesn’t seem like he wants to spend any more of his easy earned money on a Chelsea team that is aging before my very eyes.

Let’s be clear here. This team, right now, is suffering from a mental fragility and its so obvious that even Carlo Ancelotti is being forced to address it.






"We started to be scared when Everton put pressure on us," he said after yet more dropped points. By the way, this same Everton team had been pummeled 4-1 at Goodison Park by West Bromwich Albion last time out.

Scared and mentally fragile are words that I’ve not heard associated with Chelsea since the infamous meltdown to Marseille in the UEFA Champions League under Claudio Ranieri.

Sure you have the warriors in the form of the ever-mouthy John Terry, the brave and dignified Petr Cech but after that it’s a struggle to name a true Blue. With Frank Lampard still on the sideline, Chelsea is currently missing that heartbeat that defines all clubs.

The likes of Ashley Cole, Nicolas Anelka, Flourent Malouda and Didier Drogba may kiss the badge, but offer them a fat contract elsewhere and they’d be at Heathrow Airport before you could order them a limo.

As for Michael Essien, John Obi Mikel and Jose Bosingwa, they appear to shrivel up when the going gets really tough and the bench, well it is the weakest I’ve seen in years. The intimidation factor that won Chelsea games in the tunnel before the match had even started is not there and you can almost pinpoint to the day when that happened.

On November 7th a very average Liverpool team tore into the defending Premier League champions and stuffed them. That has become a blueprint for the rest of the division.

Ancelotti seemingly has no answers and is beginning to take on the haunted look of a man that knows the axe is being sharpened. Unfortunately for the Italian, the executioner’s knowledge of football could fit on a pinhead but as I like to say, 'it’s the man who pays the piper that calls the tune.'

Watching Roman call FIFA’s tune last week in Zurich, I would imagine his new mission concerns the building trade and developing the many stadiums that Russia will need in eight years time. Given his close relationship with Vladimir Putin, I don’t think too many of those contracts will be going out for tender.

From club football to World Cup football and all it takes is a few hundred million.

Money. It’s a gas.

Nick Webster is a senior writer for FoxSoccer.com covering the Barclay's Premier League and the English national team.

Source: http://msn.foxsports.com/foxsoccer/premierleague/story/Webster-Blues-chief-ready-to-exit-PL-stage

Nope. He is stl my man 4 life. Every club must experienc d down side of life,mine is nw bt b rest assured I AM WINNING THE CUP AGAIM,The end justifies d means.

Wonderfull article!! the writer did not include that newcastle was also beaten 1-5 just before their game with chelsea where chelsea managed to draw!! YES Romanusuck is about to sell Chelsea like the[b] cray fish[/b] they are and his marketing slogan is Na condition make cray fish bend the club is currently subjected to the law of gravity and are in total disarray , with most of their so called stars playing Humpty Dumpty in front of goal playing rubbish football with so much zeal shooting sporadically like armed robbers in fron of goal. even West Ham has vowed that they will not allow a team like chelsea to finish ahead of them this year may the Lord not allow our individual case be like that of Chelsea ! Amen

Let him GOOOO

Im tired sef,

What else do you expect from a fox news writer? Same old anti-soviet sentiments.

Unna never see anything!!!
He doesn't want to go bankrupt & has to dump this arrogant club.
Hahahahaha, Can't stop laughing.

onpe!! how that one con take consign nigerian government?

190:

Let him GOOOO

Im tired sef,  

and i assure u chelsea will struggle to compete with the likes of everton, west brom etc. That's where u have to respect teams like man u, arsenal and spurs, they work hard to achieve whatever success they have, not relying on some billionaire to buy trophies. I'm happy with what is happening to chelskov, they deserve it for distorting the transfer market few years ago.

Consign. . .  .


E no consign dem jare. . .

FREECOCOA WHERE U DEY ABEG COME COMMENT ON DIS O

abi now, e no CONSIGN DEM

THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING
I'VE SAID IT EVEN BEFORE
WHERE ARE ALL THE PEOPLE DISTURBING PEOPLE PEACE WITH "THE BLUES" EVERYWHERE. WHERE ARE THEY. EVEN NEXT YEARS CHAMPIONS LEAGUE WILL ELUDE YOU. GARBAGES

UNA NO DEY SCORE SEVEN GOALS AGAIN?
THINKING U'VE WON THE TROPHY ALREADY

^^^ No mind them form the beginning 6-0, 6-0 e be like say heaven wan fall, now wey heaven don dey fall finally for dem head dem come dey cry

It is only a matter of time before chelsea becomes another blackburn,an abandoned projet,remember blackburn was once called the bank of england and wrestled the premiership from man u for a season,too bad for chelsea fans,but wait a minute is man city not another blues,chelsea fans can now become man city fans afteral the watchword is THE BLUES,forget the sky there.

They even lozt again last 9t, we wil al dz stop sef me go change club sef.

^^^ Change naa,who need u

With all the money they can't win the Champions League, After about 7 years, with millions and millions. . . Shame. Chelsea is just horrible. I'll advise Roman to go do something better with his money! Chelsea is a disgrace. . .

^^ Hey MOD,watch ur lip movement

The end of Cheski

i dont know why you guys cant SIMPLY understand that they are just in bad form, it can happen to anyteam, remember what happened to real madrid last season?

lovejo:

this journalist is definitely from arsenal or man utd.

This poster is definitely sinking with Chelsea. When you guys were wasting your goals at the beginning of the season you thought global meltdown was for Wall Street alone, lol. It's caught up with you guys now. Ntoooooo!

At Last, we would stop seeing those ugly blue stickers and banners all over nigeria very soon, now let me see the club chelsea fans would run to, 2 immature and hot headed to belong to either Man U, Arsenal or Liverpool, maybe Man city would suite them cos afterall lets face the facts "chelsea fans are all about the billion dollar clubs" not The real fun of the game.

^ Go hug transformer jor

oniema:

FREECOCOA WHERE U DEY ABEG COME COMMENT ON DIS O

Oboy wetin be your own?free cocoa alone o abeg.@topic,seriously these boys are breaking ma heart,i really don't understand what's happening,it seems to me like ancelotti doesn't know what he's doing anymore,and that Drogba sef i just don't know,anyway i know it'll get better,but if it doesn't i'll decamp and move over to La liga or Serie A permanently.Roman is still ma man any day.

WE ARE  ALWAYS GOOD AT ADVISING OTHERS ON WHAT TO DO WITH THEIR OWN MONEY,BUT NOT GOOD ENOUGH TO MAKE SAME AMOUNT OF MONEY LIKE THEM WITH ALL OUR  SELF ACCLAIMED KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERTISE ON HOW OTHERS SHLD SPEND THEIR OWN MONEY.

I TIE FOR ALL OF UNA,DRINKING PANADOL ON CHELSEA AND ITS OWNER ISSUES AS IF THE GUY SEEKED FOR UR CONSENT B4 BUYING THE CLUB.

ALMOST ALL THE CLUBS IN ENGLAND ARE OWNED BY INDIVIDUALS WHICH IS THE TREND NW,SO WTF ARE U LOADS TALKING ABOUT?

BUSY BODY PEOPLE,DIS JOBLESSNESS ISSUE IN 9JA,IF NOT PROPERLY ADDRESSED,I C SOME OF US TAKING OUR FRUSTRATIONS TO OTHERS THAT ARE MINDING AND DOING THEIR OWN THING OF WHICH THE ISSUE IN QUESTION IS A TYPICAL EXAMPLE.

Y DONT WE TALK ABOUT OUR DOMESTIC LEAGUE AND EXACT SO MUCH PASSION THE SAME WAY WE DO FOR EUROPEAN CLUBS. MADE IN 9JA BRAND SEEMS LIKE WILL NEVER WORK IN THIS COUNTRY,EVEN OUR FOLLOWER-SHIP IN SPORTS TOO IS IMPORTED.

oniema:

FREECOCOA WHERE U DEY ABEG COME COMMENT ON DIS O

Oboy wetin be your own?free cocoa alone o abeg.@topic,seriously these boys are breaking ma heart,i really don't understand what's happening,it seems to me like ancelotti doesn't know what he's doing anymore,and that Drogba sef i just don't know,anyway i know it'll get better,but if it doesn't i'll decamp and move over to La liga or Serie A permanently.Roman is still ma man any day.

well if u dont watch fo soccer you would think nick webster knows what he is talking about.he is an absolute thrash talking football analyst who knows nothing aboiut that game,used to have a show on FSC with eric wynalda and they got booted cos they were busy giving out wrong info
Nick knows nothing
u should have seen him during the wc in the match btw usa and ghana and how much he was talking down ghana because as he put it "a nation with the population of chicago should never be able to beat the USA"
that says a lot about his mentality
it  is not about polpulation otherwise india and china will be world champions by now

@freecocoa its just that that Blues Logo is not meant 4 you, come join us we go even pay u join

yes