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Grant, a former Israel national team coach, seems to have made little headway in attempts to quell resistance to his accession as Chelsea manager. Senior players continue to question his ability and qualifications to lead a team of Chelsea's calibre, while members of the coaching staff also harbour serious doubts.

Ahead of last Wednesday's League Cup victory at Hull, Terry elected to hold a team meeting in which he called on team-mates to rally behind the new manager. Terry's message was ill-received, however, with several players insisting Grant was not good enough to coach them. One respected international spoke with team-mates after Terry's words, complaining: 'Chelsea deserve a bigger coach than him. Grant does not have the quality to coach a team like this. When we play big opponents we will suffer because of him.'

coogar: @ dayokanu,

stop being an odious wankër. from your wiki copy n paste, how come the parts emboldened are the ones that are not referenced. you are almost 50 yrs of age and you still don't know what qualifies a writer's opinion and which ones are the facts.......you can do better than this!!

Chelsea angry at Grant barracking
Chelsea manager Avram Grant (left) and chairman Bruce Buck
Chairman Buck (right) is keen to end the abuse aimed at Grant
Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck says the club will not tolerate what he deemed as abuse bordering on racism directed by fans at manager Avram Grant.

Israeli Grant, 52, has succeeded Jose Mourinho as Chelsea boss and his side drew 0-0 with Fulham on Saturday.

"We welcome constructive points of view but we've had a few which could be seen as racist and anti-Semitic," said Buck.

"This is one thing we will not tolerate whether written, on banners, or through singing and it must stop immediately."

Grant's Polish father Meir, 80, is a Holocaust survivor and Buck continued: "It unfairly smears the reputation of the vast majority of the Chelsea fans who rightly do not want to be associated with such activity."

Chelsea supporters were also chanting the name of Mourinho during the second half of their game with west London rivals Fulham at Stamford Bridge.

And the club's billionaire owner Roman Abramovich, who sat with fans in the upper tier of the Shed stand instead of his private box, was forced to endure their taunts.

Chelsea stretched thier unbeaten home league record to 67 matches, but John Terry suffered a depressed fracture of the cheekbone and returning striker Didier Drogba was sent off, to compound Grant's problems

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/c/chelsea/7020854.stm

When he took the helm at Chelsea, Grant did not hold the required top-flight coaching certification from UEFA. In fact, he had never received the lower-level coaching cerfications from UEFA for "B" and "A" level coaching in Europe. Many Chelsea fans did not take well to Grant's appointment. They protested Mourinho's departure, holding banners at games, which read "Mourinho – The Special One", and chanting Mourinho's name. Chelsea stated that some of the protests directed towards Grant constituted abuse of a racist nature. Bruce Buck, chairman of Chelsea, claimed they had received points of view which are racist and anti-semitic. Buck stated: "[This] unfairly smears the reputation of the vast majority of the Chelsea fans who rightly do not want to be associated with such activity." However, many Chelsea fans felt their objections against Grant being appointed as the team's manager are justified, citing his "lack of expertise at the highest levels of football" and Grant's lack of a formal UEFA qualification as manager.

Several unnamed Chelsea players were quoted as saying Grant's methods were "25 years behind the times" and "Chelsea deserve a bigger coach than him. Grant does not have the quality to coach a team like this. When we play big opponents we will suffer because of him." At least one of Grant's staff told friends that they considered leaving the club.

Grant faced his first game only 3 days after taking up the manager's role, losing 2–0 to Manchester United on 24 September. At his first UEFA Champions League match as a coach (with Chelsea and in general) he led Chelsea to a 2–1 away win over Valencia, replicating one of Mourinho's most celebrated wins.[26] Chelsea went on to register a 16-game unbeaten run under Grant, including beating Manchester City 6–0 in one of Chelsea's biggest wins. Subsequently, Grant was offered and signed a four-year contract with Chelsea in December 2007.[27]

kettykings: I now understand why you people don't want to opt out of Nigeria even when it is evident that the Titanic Nation is sinking and smart people want to opt out before it sinks , not even the Hausa/Fulani talked ill of Nzegwu and Ojuku .

I can understand the North/Middle belt when they raise fears of Nigeria Collapsing because they don't have access to the Sea and they don't seem to have discovered oil in Large Quantity, But the Hypocritical Vultures in the South West who even though they have Coastal States , a large urbanised coastal City like Lagos and some traces of Crude oil and Bitumen don't ever want to consider leaving this sinking Titanic even as a fourth option because they simply can not survive as a nation on their own and will be prefer feeding on subsidised fuel and all manner of taxes from Ibo Businessmen in Lagos Coupled with the inate fear and insecurity of being Recolonized by the Fulanis

coogar: man management my foot!
avram grant can manage men better than hiddink and mourinho? there are several factors that should be considered when reeling out these kinda dodgy stats. first 27 games, not even first 27 league games where the same opponents are likely to have been played against by each of the managers.......stats can be made to suit any agenda. if you compute the stats of the first 15 league games, the stats would reveal a different result, if you compute the stats of the same opponents, you would also get a different set of results!



what previous history did jose and chelsea have before arriving? what previous history has fergie against united when he joined. if barcelona sign mourinho as their manager today would the barca fans fall in love with mourinho? your argument is always upside down. learn to argue objectively! chelsea fans are not mad because of the results - they hated rafa from day one(even before his first game) because of the things he had said about chelsea in the past!

yet another idiotic argument presented......
you cannot just draw idiotic comparisons without looking at the tools each of the managers worked with. mourinho and grant had essien/makelele in their prime shielding the back four! benitez has a washed up lampard and ramirez(who ibime said isn't a midfielder) as his options. mourinho/grant/hiddink/ancelotti had the combination of drogba + anelka in their prime doing the business while benitez inherited a mismanaged torres before adding an inconsistent demba ba few months after....

how then can you draw accurate comparisons when it's obvious they worked with different personnel. even the likes of lampard, terry, cech, cole, etc are now shadows of their former selves. they have aged over the years. before you let your amnesia override your thinking faculty - it was benitez that twice denied mourinho(chelsea's greatest manager of all time) from winning the champions league for chelsea with arguably the most expensive team ever assembled in england!

a swallow does not make a summer! even if you put a plank upfront, the ball would hit it n score 2-5 goals throughout the course of a season. as record stands, ba is not an improvement on torres as of yet at chelsea!

this boy can spin rubbish to delude himself - it's becoming clearer? on the bank of ba shooting blanks in the last 3-5 games or thereabout?

Billyonaire: I am surprise that IBB is very popular amongst the underdogs, This is a Military Dictator who annulled June 12, killed MKO Abiola, and set this country backwards. This IBB should have been shamefully sacked from PDP and publicly executed if not for respect we have on past Presidents. In his very careful and maradonic move, he uttered an inconclusive statement and the APC (should I say Chloroquin) parasites are scrambling for wants of words. Is IBB relevant in today's Nigeria ? The answer is No, IBB is the reason we are in darkness. It takes a GEJ to refocus our steps.

“Babangida is like a father to me, even in my days as a deputy governor and later as governor of Bayelsa State, I used to consult him. So when it came to the option that I might contest with him, I was very weak, but God knows why and God interpreted it and we never contested the primary,” Jonathan said.