Email
Print
Digg This
By Mike Collett
LONDON, May 24 (Reuters) - Avram Grant described himself as "The Normal One" when he succeeded "The Special One" Jose Mourinho as Chelsea's manager last September.
His eight months in charge at Stamford Bridge were far from normal, however, despite him leading Chelsea close to a treble of Champions League, Premier League and League Cup triumphs.
In the end, he ended up winning nothing, and it is debatable whether even a victory in the Champions League final against Manchester United in Moscow on Wednesday would have helped him save his job.
Rightly or wrongly, his critics maintained that Grant, who had joined the club as director of football from Portsmouth, only got the job as Chelsea manager because of his close friendship with the club's billionaire Russian owner Roman Abramovich.
The argument ran that Abramovich could not control the charismatic and powerful Portuguese Mourinho whose football was too defensive and not entertaining enough for the Russian owner.
Grant would make Chelsea play in a style more to Abramovich's liking and would not stand his ground in the way Mourinho had done.
Overall, however, there was not all that much difference between Grant's football and Mourinho's.
FIRST ISRAELI
Chelsea are powerful, efficient and effective. They rarely, if ever, delight the eye of the neutral in the way that United or Arsenal can. Often, they are rarely pleasing to the eye of their own fans either.
As the season progressed, Chelsea rarely lost -- in fact they only suffered five defeats in Grant's 54 matches in charge -- but there were continual reports of training ground feuds and arguments over tactics.
Grant, though, came across as a thoroughly decent man working under almost impossible pressure. Only once, did he lose his cool, after a 1-0 win over Everton last month when he gave one word answers to a series of questions from the media.
The next time he met reporters, he was as polite, if as bland, or at best non-committal, as ever, in his answers to reporters.
Grant may have described himself as a "normal person" at his first news conference after getting the job, but he was far from that. He was the first Israeli to manage in the Premier League and one that did not even possess a UEFA pro coaching badge.
His father's family were among the victims of the Holocaust and he recently visited Auschwitz on Holocaust Remembrance Day.
He was hugely respected by other managers like Manchester United's Alex Ferguson, who praised him during the build-up to the Champions League final.
"If any other manager had done what Avram has done at Chelsea in his first season in charge, most other clubs would be offering him a 10-year contract" said Ferguson.
At Chelsea, he didn't even survive for a year.
