Lets face it. The relationship between Jose Mourinho and Roman Abramovich is not working out. And it is not hard to see why. They have fundamentally different ideologies. Abramovich’s way of doing business was to get wealthy purchasing his erstwhile partner’s Boris Berezovsky’s stake in Sibneft, Rusal, and ORT for throwaway prices. He did get carried away with Chelsea and Jose Mourinho, indulging the club with unlimited amounts of transfer money to get the most expensive players. And it has worked fantastically well. Mourinho’s forte is to take these big ego-ed players and subjugate them to his will. He is a martinet and a stickler for players executing their roles in his tactics. But Mourinho’s track record nurturing young talent is pretty thin. Chelsea is probably about 10 years away from the talent pool that Wenger has managed to develop in Arsenal.
Abramovich’s recent decision to put his long term hat on and invest in this route reflects a return to his natural state of doing business after all the hype but he realizes Mourinho’s strength is not in player development. Mourinho is far too impatient and too cautious to suddenly entrust the fortunes of Chelsea to a future generation of players brought up from their youth ranks.
In a way, both Chelsea and Arsenal are in a bit of a quandary where each one is a bit covetous of the other. I am sure Wenger does look back at some high priced acquisitions that he would have loved to have had with the amount of transfer money at his disposal if Abramovich was his boss. It would have leavened some of Arsenal’s performance, jagged and inconsistent this season because of the youth and relative inexperience of their squad. On the other hand Abramovich when he looks at Arsenal, sees an enviable system, not built by money but by the care and effort personally orchestrated by Wenger in building a first rate talent pool. Its the way he would do business.
The Independent has a story of Guus Hiddink teaming up with two coaches at Chelsea in a unique arrangement and overseeing their fortunes and that of Russia. That is the sort of arrangement that can be worked out when you bankroll the national coach.