Abramovich will leave a strong legacy at Chelsea
THE big news to emanate from the football world last week was the announcement that Roman Abramovich would be selling Chelsea. The news came amidst the oligarch’s home nation of Russia invading Ukraine.
Since purchasing the Stamford Bridge giants in 2003, Abramovich transformed them from Premier League also-rans into European and world football giants.
During his almost two-decade long ownership of Chelsea, the club won five Premier League titles, five FA Cups, three League Cups, two Champions League titles, two Europa Leagues and most recently the Club World Cup.
He transformed the culture of the club, earning his fair share of criticism along the way. Under Abramovich, Chelsea were able to rope in legends of the game across different eras. Among these names include Andriy Shevchenko, Fernando Torres, Cesc Fabregas, Michael Ballack, Didier Drogba, Petr Cech and N’Golo Kante.
Chelsea have also had many modern day coaching greats take charge of them such as Jose Mourinho, Luis Felipe Scolari, Carlo Ancelotti, Antonio Conte and Thomas Tuchel. He had a strict approach towards managers regarding success, something that he was strongly criticised for.
In Abramovich’s eyes, second place was a loss. In his world view, anything other than winning trophies in a season should be deemed a failure. Managers lost their jobs for not winning silverware. This was best seen in the 2007/08 season. Avram Grant led the club to a second place finish in the Premier League and to the final of the Champions League that year where they lost on penalties to Manchester United. On paper, this could be deemed a successful season.
However, his inability to win a piece of major silverware led to him being sacked.
Another strong critique Chelsea faced during the majority of Abramovich’s reign was the hesitancy towards promoting their own young talent. Due to Abramovich’s appetite for instant success, ready-made products were usually brought into the team, so much so that the club did not even have faith in the likes of Mohamed Salah, Kevin de Bruyne and Romelu Lukaku when they were raw young products at the club.
Lukaku has since returned to the club but Salah and De Bruyne went on to achieve stardom elsewhere.
The club’s attitudes towards young talent did improve however after Frank Lampard’s appointment as manager in 2019. Lampard gave opportunities to the likes of Mason Mount, Reece James and Tammy Abraham who all went on to become first team stars.