Shed no tears for Chelsea

May 27 2008 By Pat Murphy

It sounds a compelling tale. Avram Grant loses his job at Chelsea due to a couple of inches. That was the margin between John Terry's penalty winning the Champions' League Final, rather than the ball clipping the outside of the post.

Cue enough tears from Terry to make the Gazza of Italia '90 look like Trevor Howard, the emotionally-incontinent hero of that classic forties weepie, Brief Encounter.

But the truth was more prosaic than that. Grant was sacked because he simply wasn't up to the job of succeeding Jose Mourinho. No amount of special pleading on Grant's behalf can obscure the fact that he was incredibly lucky to land the plum in the first place - and that was only because he was a crony of Roman Abramovich.

You only had to watch the body language of the Chelsea players around Grant, to assess his mystifying tactics, his blundering abuse of his available substitutes to realise he was Dead Man Walking. The senior Chelsea players took the pragmatic decision midway through the season to get by without taking too much notice of their hapless manager.

Big names with monumental egos and massive experience of pressure situations can take you a long way if you are united as a group. That's why Chelsea pressed Manchester United so closely in two competitions this month. Nothing to do with Avram Grant, everything to do with the legacy left to the players by Mourinho.

We should also shed no tears for John Terry. He has spilt enough on his own. The Chelsea captain has long been close to anarchy on the field, treating key decisions by the referee as a basis for eyeballing ranting rather than respect for the bloke who is running the game.

Terry rages at referees as a reflex action. He even manhandles them and - witness the league game at Old Trafford - snatches the red card from the official's hand when displeased with a decision.

He encapsulates Chelsea's disrespect for authority that permeates the club. When you're bankrolled by a billionaire who feels no need to account publicly for his decisions to the supporters, you tend to feel you're above the normal conventions on the field of play.

Terry was at it again on Wednesday night, first in the queue to harangue Carlos Tevez over a piffling matter concerning a throw-in. Tevez had done exactly the same as Terry earlier in the game, who's kicked the ball into touch near United's corner flag as a means of returning possession after a team-mate had received medical attention.That didn't concern Terry as he waded in.

After it all kicked off, with United justifiably defending themselves against the charge of unsportsmanlike behaviour - rich coming from Chelsea - Didier Drogba was sent off for infantile antics. He would have taken Chelsea's fifth penalty, not Terry.

Sympathy to Terry for slipping at the crucial instant when he took the penalty, but the same happened to United's goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar, whose loss of footing let in Frank Lampard for Chelsea's equaliser. This after two rebounds from United defenders. Luck evens itself out.

The lachrymose Terry then delivered himself of a self-serving open letter to the fans a few days later. No doubt carefully scripted by one of the club's thought police, the letter banged on about the captain's remorse and his loyalty to Chelsea. He wasn't ashamed to admit he had cried and that Wednesday night would haunt him forever.

Then he reassured us. 'I will give my all on and off the pitch to win this trophy as a player and one day as a manager'.

So who has told John Terry that he will be Chelsea's manager at some stage? Is his power base that solid at Stamford Bridge?

It would be interesting to see if Terry has the aptitude to study for his relevant coaching badges. His conviction that he will manage a top club contrasts sharply with the humility of great managers such as Brian Clough, Bill Shankly, Alex Ferguson and Jock Stein,who hacked away at the coalface of the lower divisions before ascending to their deserved place in the sun.

Somehow an illustrious playing career seems enough for the modern wannabee manager, rather than learning a difficult trade elsewhere.

Meanwhile Manchester United fans ought to be grateful to John Terry and the grim leviathan that is Chelsea FC. They at last have ensured that there is a more unpopular club in the land than United.

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* England still waiting for greatness

The current England cricket team is awash with pleasant, approachable individuals.

Almost to a man they are the sort you can introduce to your ageing mother and be sure of their courtesy and decency.

Perhaps that's one of the problems. Are they too soft? Has the killer instinct faded away after that magnificent Ashes triumph in 2005? Yesterday's victory at Old Trafford shouldn't blind the camp to the fact the match was handed them on a plate by an inexperienced New Zealand side.

Anyone who's been part of a side that triumphs at the highest level will confirm that the toughest bit is staying at the top, not the exciting journey to the summit. That is why Manchester United and the Australian cricket team deserve unbounded respect.

But England's cricketers continue to frustrate. Before this series against New Zealand, the players to a man said how underrated the opposition were, that they'd be a tough nut to crack. Yet they have appeared complacent, meandering along while batting and absent-minded in the field.

England's batsmen keep harping on about the fact that the top six all average over 40 in Tests and so they are good enough.

Yet the worldwide decline in fast bowling and better batting surfaces mean that fifty is now the minimum a Test batsman should aim for. The Australians Michael Hussey and Ricky Ponting average 78 and 59 respectively.

Andrew Strauss rather gave the game away in his Sunday newspaper column when he assessed the third day ahead at Old Trafford.

'We have two great batsmen at the crease'. He was referring to Kevin Pietersen and Ian Bell. They are not. Pietersen may yet become a great player, while Bell is a fine batsman who may develop into something special once he starts posting first-innings hundreds consistently in Tests.

Consistency is the key, the knack of turning round a Test, series after series. On that basis England have not had a great player since Graham Gooch, between 1990-2.

There have been any amount of very fine England cricketers in that period. This columnist would offer Atherton, Stewart, Vaughan, Thorpe, Gough, Trescothick, Flintoff, Caddick and Hoggard. None of them 'great' players if you wish to apply proper rigorous standards.

It's that mental flaccidity in praising team-mates as 'great' that perturbs. Intelligent characters like Strauss know how few are in the pantheon and none of them are playing for England.

If the current crop really are puffing up themselves so carelessly in the England dressing-room, then Australia have nothing to fear next summer over here.