Chelsea Draw With Everton And The Avram Grant Critics Crawl Out Of The Woodwork Again

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Avram Grant Hasn’t Really Changed Chelsea at all….So says the Daily Mail, a blinking beacon of contoversy standing provocatively on the street corner, which today reckons it will lure in the most ‘punters’ by having a pop at Mr Avram Grant, entertainer par excellence.

The Mail’s columnist Paul Hayward reckons that Grant hasn’t changed much, and that this was highlighted by the fact that Chelsea didn’t trounce Everton. However, it has to be said that Chelsea had a huge amount of chances, and Everton had but one, a spectacular bicycle kick by Tim ‘Thank God He’s Back’ Cahill.

Hayward writes:

“You come to Stamford Bridge expecting to see a fiesta of freshly liberated football but go home feeling that not much has changed. Teams are not reinvented in the time it takes Jose Mourinho to fly from London back to Portugal. Even Arsene Wenger took more than a dozen matches to reconfigure Arsenal in his own ambitious image. The regulars in the old Shed are kidding themselves if they think there was a showman in the old Chelsea just fighting to get out.”

Hayward continues to assert that little has changed and all this guff about the new ‘entertaining’ Chelsea under Avram Grant is just smoke and mirrors. Hayward writes:

“Look down the results since he lost 2-0 at Old Trafford on his managerial debut and there is little to distinguish Grant’s pattern of play from that of his predecessor. Mourinho could have won games 6-0, too. He simply chose not to. At 2-0, his teams drew in their horns and conserved their energy for next week’s match. From Portugal will come snorts of derision when he hears that Grant has cooked up a mantra of ‘good football’ while fielding Mourinho’s old players and formation. Against Everton they started 4-3-3, which was Mourinho’s favoured system before Andriy Shevchenko was foisted on him. Even the promotion of Joe Cole back to the starting XI predates Grant’s appointment. Cole was selected against Blackburn and Rosenborg before Mourinho’s final collision with owner Roman Abramovich.”

Hmm, getting a naff draw instead of the deserved three points, not much has changed at the Bridge then. However, I do recall Mourinho coming out with some excellent egg related quotes about his players finishing, or lack thereof – and they think Grant is an entertainer…. Grant’s monotone stuttering press conferences definitely need some Mourinho-style life put into them…