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THE SEQUEL TO THE DAMNED UNITED...

...NOW SHOWING
AT CHELSEA!

FRANKING WORRALL REPORTING

IN 1974 Brian Clough famously lasted just 44 days as the manager of Leeds United. At the time he was arguably the best football manager around, yet he failed to inspire one of the best teams around when he took over at the helm from Don Revie.

Why did he fail? He was too abrupt with and insensitive to the needs of the established players at the club. The likes of Billy Bremner and Johnny Giles didn’t take at all kindly to someone coming in and telling them to ‘throw their medals in the bin’.

Fast forward 38 years and the story played out again - but this time at Stamford Bridge in West London.

Substitute Andre Villas Boas for Clough and Frank Lampard and Ashley Cole for Bremner and Giles and you get the picture.

The Portuguese was the manager in demand; he was young, had just won a series of impressive trophies with Porto - and he arrived at the Bridge with a mandate to modernise the playing staff.
To bring in new blood and to gently ease out the ageing legs of Lampard, Cole et al. Only it didn’t work out like that - like Clough he met fierce opposition to change from those very older players he had arrived to send off into the dark night.

And like Clough, he was ultimately hung out to dry by the club’s board of directors, or as it is in Chelsea’s case, the autocrat who runs Chelsea.

So it was farewell Andre and hello to...well, who knows. Di Matteo is the caretaker but the new man has not been signed up.

My sources close to Roman tell me it is likely to be one of two - Joachim Loew, the current boss of the German national side, or Athletic Bilbao’s Argentine coach Marcelo Bielsa.

I personally would go for Bielsa. Look at the wonderful job he has done at Athletic Bilbao - creating a team of young players who destroyed Man United at Old Trafford last week. And he has the tough edge to show the old moaners the exit door - and quickly.

He is the ideal choice if Roman finally wants to lay down some solid foundations.

As for Lampard and Cole, I thought their behaviour under Villas Boas was disgusting and shameful. They are senior players who are quick to touch the badge on their shirts when they are on the pitch.

But their actions under Villas Boas were totally selfish - they seemed much more concerned about themselves and their petty little battles to put the new boss in his place than they did about the welfare of Chelsea FC. I can understand their ire at being dropped and suddenly no longer being the kingpins - but I believe they would have had a future under Villas Boas if they had knuckled down and accepted that time waits for no one.

In turn, Villas Boas would have had a future himself.

Now the whole issue has exploded, a man who has a lot of potential has gone and the likes of Lampard and Cole could well follow him out the door come summer. Everyone at the Bridge knows they haven’t come out of this with any credit - they are as much to blame as the Portuguese for the lamentable showings.

Now Chelsea need a hardman to knock them back into shape - and to make it clear to any dissenters that they will be on their bikes if they don’t toe the line. In turn, the hardman will need Roman to back him whatever happens: the short-term aggro will lead to long-term joy.
Roman has got to end this short-termism and see the bigger picture.

And, in my humble opinion anyway, Marcelo Bielsa is just the man needed to enforce the necessary revolution.

MOTOR RACING - THE AUSTRALIAN GP

THE FIRST season of the new Formula 1 season gets underway on Sunday – and everyone connected or interested in the sport is praying it is more competitive than last year’s damp squib. Last season was a victory march for German Seb Vettel for much of the campaign after other drivers simply lost their touch. Yes, Lewis Hamilton, we’re pointing at you.

This term the omens are better. Lewis, in particular, is a 100 times more fired up and concentrated in the job in hand. He is back with girlfriend Nicole Scherzinger and appears happier and steadier. Now if only he could prove himself big enough to welcome his old dad back into the fold again… then he would surely be the complete deal.

As it stands, I can see Lewis pusing Vettel much harder – as I am sure will fellow Brit ace Jenson Button. For all his efforts, Button remains very much the McCartney to Hamilton’s Lennon: whatever he does he cannot seem to enchant the British public as Lewis does.

Last year at Albert Park in Melbourne Vettell began his run to glory, triumphing in his Red Bull from pole to chequered flag. And that is one of the keys to winning the Australian GP - the circuit is a tough ask if you don’t get off to a good start. If you do, you’re in with a good chance as long as the car keeps going. So come on Lewis and Jenson, pull out all the stop sin qualifying – and one of you is likely to come home first if you win pole.

Good luck lads from your No 1 sports paper…the Weekly Sport.

FRANKIE’S FLUTTERS

PUT a fiver on the next full-time boss of Chelsea FC being Marcelo Bielsa or Joachim Loew.

Then on Sunday Man United travel to Molineux to take on relegation strugglers Wolves. United will surely walk it given the chaos at Wolves, with Mick McCarthy getting the boat and the players finding it hard to adopt to life under a caretaker boss and the animosity the fans feel towards the board of directors seeping down to the terraces.

I can only see a United win, the only thing in question is the score...and I’ll go for a 4-1 triumph for the Red Devils.

And the F1 in Melbourne – call me a silly dreamer, but I’m going for Hamilton or Button!

FRANK WORRALL
(For more information on Frank and his bestselling sports books, see www.frankworrall.com)
Weekly Sport readers can buy Frank’s insightful book on Sir Alex Ferguson for the special price of only £2.74 on Kindle (retail price £17.99 for the hardback)…go to http://www.amazon.co.uk/Walking-Fergie-Wonderland-Biography-ebook/dp/B00603XJB8/ref=sr_1_7?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1326291046&sr=1-7

THE BRITISH OLYMPIC GAMES - a commentary by FRANK WORRALL

THE OLYMPICS

- DO WE DESERVE TO HOLD THEM?

I’M looking forward to the Olympics in London this summer as much as anyone. But I can’t help but wonder if we really deserve to be holding them given the attitude of some people here.

Of course, sports lovers nationwide are anticipating the sporting feast with relish.
But not so the service industry workers who will (hopefully) transport us to the Olympic venues and provide safety cover for us at the Olympic Park in East London.

I only ask if we do deserve it after learning the following:

1. The London Fire Brigade has written to all firemen who retired in the last two years asking them if they are available to work inside the Olympic Park because of fears there will not be enough serving officers to do the job.

They have had to act because serving firefighters have been banned from working overtime by their unions.

2. Tube workers have threatened strike action after rejecting a £500 bonus to work during the Olympics. The RMT union have demanded more money for staff who have to work during the games – even though the tube drivers are already on around £48,000 a year, with rises guaranteed over the next three years to take them well over the £50k a year mark.

Now is it me, or isn’t this double strike threat out of order at a time when many people are struggling to make ends meet in the worst recession in living memory?

And shouldn’t the staff involved be thinking about how they have a once-in-lifetime opportunity to show the nation - and the world - how proud they are of their jobs, and how efficient they are?

Rather than seeing it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to cash in on a major event in their region?

It does make me think - especially when my nephew and his girlfriend are excitedly making plans to travel down to London for the summer to work in part-time jobs at the Olympics.

Because they can’t get work in their native Manchester...and they are so proud to be part of the Olympics experience that will probably never happen again in their young lifetimes (they are only in their early 20s).

Maybe they could talk to the London workers - who by comparison seem to be acting like spoilt brats - and get them to think again...