Global transfer market to be replaced by Chelsea loans

Wide-ranging reform to the global transfer system in football has been proposed in a white paper which outlines a replacement system by which players can only move from club to club via Chelsea loaning them out.

'Lack of moon on a stick' leads to Chelsea sacking

Chelsea manager Roberto di Matteo was fired today for "not delivering the moon on a stick" according to the club.

Vilanova tears up playbook after Parkhead loss

After defeat to Celtic in the Champions League, despite his Barcelona team enjoying 89% of possession and dominating in most facets of the games, Tito Vilanova told reporters that this signalled an end to the Barcelona template that has served them so well over recent seasons.

I don't know much about art, but I know what I like

Art is entirely subjective. For every piece lauded by all and recognised as Good Art - the Mona Lisa, say - there's a piece of brutalist architecture like Birmingham Library, unloved by many but also recognised as an exemplar of it's type. Modern art is even more divisive and for every acclaimed Antony Gormley statue there's an Eduardo Paolozzi head that remains unseen by many, praised by few and loved by even fewer. For every one of Dali's melting clocks that adorn the walls of students, there's also something like his Portrait Of My Dead Brother, a dark, disturbing piece, but also utterly compelling.

Football, we are told, is art. Barcelona, we are told, are the Flemish Masters of their day. But the art they produce is only one interpretation. Widely acclaimed and admired it may be, but it's not the only way to produce something that someone, somewhere will love. Nothing is right, nothing is wrong. Some styles may have more aesthetic appeal to a mass audience and be easier on the eye, but that's not to say that alternative methods of achieving the same goal are worthless or devalued.

What Chelsea did at the Nou Camp was not pretty, but there are plenty of other things it wasn't as well: dull, ineffective, unworthy. It wasn't some major tactical masterplan, rather a case of needs-must and pragmatic determination brought on by events (stupidity and misfortune in equally large measures) that left them without either of their first-choice centre-backs. Whatever else had to happen to ensure that it worked did and it's that confluence of circumstances that makes it something worth celebrating.

Champions League ennui

The quarter-finals of this season's Champions League have come and gone with barely a flicker of recognition on the Euroballs interest-o-meter. Is this a one-off or something more serious?

There's no doubt that the modern structure of Europe's premier cup competition lends itself to this, set up as it seems to be in order to ensure the passage of the same few big clubs. The revenues clubs generate from participation also helps ensure that the same clubs are more likely to be back time after time. Michel Platini's tinkering with the qualifying rounds has helped us see more national champions in the group stages and that's been slightly more refreshing - APOEL's progress has been this season's highlight - but once we get to the knockout rounds, the gulf between the have-a-bits and the have-bloody-loads is horribly exposed.

But for that sense of familiarity with the regular appearances of a small number of clubs in the last eight, this year has felt even duller. While we cheered APOEL through their last-16 tie against Lyon, Real Madrid were always going to be a step too far and the other ties lacked any sense of jeopardy. Milan playing for a 0-0 at home was never a good idea with the return at the Nou Camp and Barcelona duly got the expected result. FC Bayern eased Marseille aside home and away without either side looking particularly bothered and Chelsea did likewise against Benfica. Broadcasters here in the UK tried their best to engage viewers in Chelsea's games, but we were still too busy wishing it was Napoli and lamenting their inability to finish the job at Stamford Bridge after giving them a touch at the San Paolo. We tried watching, but as soon as Chelsea scored in Lisbon, the game was pretty much up. In the return, an early penalty all but sealed the deal and we flicked over to re-runs of Man vs Food on Dave*.

There is intrigue left. The British press are trying to whip up something about a Chelsea/Barcelona rivalry after a semi-final between the two a few years ago that featured a poor refereeing performance. We're not buying it and presume that Barcelona couldn't really give a flying one. Moreover, if form in the quarter-finals suggests anything, it's that the Catalans will be in the final in Munich after a comfortable victory. That would mean that they either face their old rivals or Bayern get to play a final on their own ground.

The Bavarians have made much of the fact that they're hosting the final and why not? They have it all to do to beat Real Madrid to get there, but let's hope they do and save us from two weeks of the usual bollocks that accompanies el clasico that, frankly, is getting tiresome coming as it does just half a dozen times a year. The Mourinho 'mind games', the hunt for new Lionel Messi-related superlatives, the endless wittering oh merciful god make it stop. So at least we will have a new thing to experience during the semi-finals: rooting for FC Hollywood to rescue the Champions League. Urgh.


* - Note for overseas readers. Yes, there is a TV channel in the UK called Dave. No, us neither.

Mourinho's legacy

Chelsea and Internazionale have a lot in common. Both enjoyed success under Jose Mourinho, both have been through managers like there's no tomorrow in the immediate aftermath of Jose Mourinho.

Chelsea are on their seventh boss since Mourinho left them five years ago, Inter are up to four in less than two years. Both clubs are burdened by the weight of Mourinho's signings, invariably experienced players at or near their peak when signed and therefore pretty costly. There's no legacy planning and Mourinho is very adept at picking the right time to move on, the fans still in awe and memories of glory days fresh in the mind. The problem arises a short time later when those players at or near their peak suddenly pass it and the incumbent coach finds a squad not fit for the job in hand. Mourinho's teams all get old together. It's as if he arrives at a club already knowing how long he's going to be around and builds a team that will last that long and not a great deal longer.

His attitude to his players also works against future coaches. By protecting his players from all external criticism - his antics with the media and on the touchline look more like the work of a Machivellian schemer than pure coincidence - he helps inculcate a culture where they are immune to everything, be that honest appraisal or new ideas.

It's also no coincidence that Inter and Chelsea both have notoriously trigger-happy chairmen, but even as far back as the 1930s when Fulham fired Jimmy Hogan after 31 days, players have had their say over managers who try to get them to do things they don't see as worthwhile. And who is easier to sack; one manager or 25 players? Moratti and Abramovich have been culpable of facilitating this trait of Mourinho.

It's like salting the earth behind you as you leave the farm. Nobody will be able to grow anything there and your reputation as a master farmer will remain intact for generations. Mourinho seals his legacy by getting to decide that his successors will not be able to emulate him.

Pragmatism in the court of the oligarch

The Premier League in England needs a crisis club. Not a genuine one, obviously, not one serially mismanaged and run into the ground like a Portsmouth, but one of these crises that can only happen at well-funded clubs stuffed to the gills with millions of pounds worth of players. The sort of crisis that only losing a few games that many expected them to win. A lot of time lately, it's been Arsenal. Now it's Chelsea.

Appointing Andre Villas-Boas signalled an intent to change the way Chelsea play football. Villas-Boas's hallmarks are all over the Porto side that British viewers had a look at in last week's Europa League game against Manchester City - a high line, constant pressing, shift it wide early and get it forwards. It's exciting, it's vibrant and that's the brand of football he was charged with taking to the Bridge. However, it also needs a certain type of player and a willingness to buy into the style as a group. While he has been able to bring in some players to help him achieve his vision - Juan Mata, for instance and has a number of existing players who can play that way, the overhaul of the squad is an ongoing process as Chelsea's policy of buying players at their peak and subsequently finding themselves with ageing assets on high wages and of no resale value bites them on the bum. Consequently, it just isn't quite working out on the field for Chelsea at the moment.

Needless to say, this has been blown up into a major issue and pressure piled onto the young manager - isn't it odd that age only matters when things aren't going so well? - to the point that it's all he's ever asked about at press conferences. Responses are scoured over for hidden meaning, hints of rifts with the owner jumped upon and the merest hint of discontent from the squad shown to 'prove' he's lost the dressing room. This culminates in the situation we find today where a Champions League loss to Napoli - perfectly plausible despite Ray Wilkins saying "they're not a threat" when the draw was made - is painted as being potentially the last time Villas-Boas takes charge of a Chelsea match.

A corrollary of all that is incessant speculation about potential successors and today's Daily Mirror suggests that Marcelo Bielsa is the one to come in should Roman Abramovich put Villas-Boas out of the press's misery. Now, if Villas-Boas was having difficulty imposing his style on the Chelsea squad, how on earth is the madcap Argentinian supposed to do that?

Bielsa is, needless to say, brilliant. He's taken his philosophy to Bilbao and he's achieving something quite remarkable. It took time though as Athletic lost three of their first four matches. Were that to be subject to the same press scrutiny as Villas-Boas's Chelsea reign, he'd have been run out of town by mid-September. But, like Villas-Boas, Bielsa was hired because of his philosophy, to implant that at the club and allow it to become the new culture. He was backed by a sympathetic board who bought into his vision.

Abramovich has proved himself to be a capricious boss during his time at Chelsea and has rarely thought overlong about binning the money spent on hiring managers before. However, he did spend big on acquiring the services of Villas-Boas and one presumes that the vision that Villas-Boas has on how football should be played was a major factor in the reasons for his recruitment. If so, there is no crisis and everyone can just stop the incessant rambling about nothing. If not, then Villas-Boas is best off out of it and someone else is going to acquire an extremely talented coach.