Chelsea should stick with AVB

The sight of Andre Villas-Boas defending his abilities and denying his job is under threat just four months into his position is a ludicrous yet unsurprising symptom of modern football.

A combination of a trigger happy owner and a over enthusiastic press is a troublesome one, with the media looking at Roman Abramovich’s recent tendency to fire managers who fail to live up to his lofty expectations before assessing ABV’s situation.

However, Villas-Boas was supposed to end all that. Given he is just 34 and cost L13million in compensation to Porto, he was a considered a long-term investment and to sack him now would cause great embarrassment, as well as considerable expense.

His current position is a self-fulfilling prophecy on Abramovich’s part. The more the Russian craves success and stability, the more he fires someone and starts again, which in turn pushes success further away and destabilises the club even more.

The club have now lost four of their last five matches, with the runaway success of the two Manchester clubs pushing their Premier League odds out to a hefty 14/1.

I wouldn’t bet on the Champions League lurking in their fixture list beyond the New Year either. Their 2-1 reverse at Bayer Leverkusen in midweek also leaves their European Cup hopes in the balance, with a humiliating demotion into the much maligned Europa League a real possibility.

But as tempting as it is for Roman to clear out and start again, faith is need to be placed on Villas-Boas’ young shoulders as does an acceptance that he may make mistakes and that things may get worse before they get better.

Instant success is rarely achieved these days and Chelsea need to build any future glory on solid foundations, and that may include a rapid shake-up of a side that contains again players with decreasing powers but seemingly increasing influence elsewhere.

It may hurt, but Chelsea’s mantra could well be short term pain for long-term gain. Good luck to the person telling Abramovich that though.