Benitez did a decent job but let’s not go over the top
Confirmation Rafael Benitez will become the new manager of Napoli officially brought to an end an episode at Chelsea which has been painful, unsavoury, bizarre but – to a point – successful.
Benitez was never going to be accepted by many Chelsea fans and though he did win over some, there were still plenty offering to escort him to the airport the second the season had finished.
The finger of blame has been pointed in many directions.
Many fans blame Roman Abramovich for sacking Roberto Di Matteo and failing to listen to the supporters who said they did not want Benitez anywhere near their club.
Others blame the Spaniard for taking the job when it should have been clear he would be unpopular.
And many onlookers blame those Chelsea fans for never giving Benitez a chance, being ungrateful when he won a trophy and failing to accept he did a good job.
There is probably some truth in all of those accusations.
I was one of those utterly dismayed last November when Benitez replaced Di Matteo.
I thought it was scandalous for Di Matteo to be sacked. He was a club legend but, far beyond that, just a few months earlier he had taken over a team in a right mess after the Andre Villas-Boas reign and within three months had won us the Champions League and FA Cup.
As the new season started he had us playing beautiful football and took us to the top of the league. Yes, we had tailed off a bit by the time he was sacked – and I’d agree he never seemed a man likely to manage us for the long term – but it was still far too soon for the axe to fall.
As for Benitez, the much-discussed public criticisms of Chelsea fans in the past played a big part in their opposition to him, but I also didn’t think much of him as a manager.
Dismal goalless draws in both his first two games, soon followed by an abysmal 3-1 defeat at West Ham, did nothing to change my opinion.
Now the season is at an end, pundits and fans of other clubs tell me Benitez has done an amazing job. On the final Match of the Day of the season Alan Hansen said his achievements had been “incredible” and he had “turned around Chelsea’s season”.
Just how true is that? Outsiders point to third place as a triumph for Benitez. And yet we were a close third when he took over [having only just surrendered top spot in the league] but a distant third by the time the title was being clinched by Manchester United.
While Benitez was in charge, Chelsea took 51 points from 26 games. United took 62, Tottenham 55 and Arsenal 54 – all a better return from the same number of matches.
Looking at it like that, you could argue our third-place finish was more down to the great start we made under Di Matteo than our performances under his replacement.
Yes, Benitez won us yet another trophy – and I will never turn my nose up at silverware. But while Di Matteo’s Chelsea had to see off Barcelona with 10 men and Bayern Munich on their home turf to win their European trophy, the Europa League saw Benitez navigate a much easier route.
With the set of players Chelsea have, any decent manager should be able to get past Sparta Prague, Steaua Bucharest, Rubin Kazan and Basel.
We came close in other tournaments but fell short in meek fashion.
In the League Cup semi-final, Swansea outplayed us over 180 minutes in which we never looked likely to score and lacked passion and ideas.
In the FA Cup semi-final we only came to life an hour into the game by which time Manchester City, playing at a different pace to us, were already 2-0 up.
And the performance in the World Club Championship final was awful.
Along the way there was the first home defeat to QPR for three decades – a QPR side that finished bottom of the league – and the squandering of two-goal leads against Southampton and Reading.
Fans were regularly bemused or disappointed by the manager’s substitutions – often coming far too late or not at all, at other times being straight like-for-like replacements when a proper change was needed.
When we needed goals in that Swansea semi, he swapped right-backs. When we were trying to defend the lead late on against Southampton, he changed strikers.
Too often towards the end of the season when the players were clearly fatigued he failed to make any changes, leaving on exhausted players when others were champing at the bit on the bench.
Benitez has not done an amazing job, nor has he turned around Chelsea’s season. But he has also not done a bad job. He has done a decent job.
Third place is higher than we finished last season and it’s always great to win a trophy. But I am not convinced we couldn’t have achieved that under Di Matteo and many other fans think the same.
I am reminded of the end of the season under Avram Grant. Grant’s appointment wasn’t met with such vitriol, largely because nobody knew anything about him, but he was never popular. Not once did the Chelsea fans sing his name.
But he too did a decent job and at the final home game of the season, when the players did their traditional lap of honour, Grant got applause from a large number of grateful fans.
I think Benitez might have got the same from some Chelsea fans if he’d given them the chance. But he disappeared down the tunnel at the end of the Everton game and did not come back out. You can hardly blame him.
While he would have been thanked by some fans he probably would have been abused by more and so he was sensible to keep his head down.
With the exception of one memorable outburst at Middlesbrough, he actually dealt with the criticism from the stands with dignity.
He walks away with his reputation restored – he had been out of work for nearly two years before Chelsea came calling but now walks into a club who will play in the Champions League next season.
Chelsea fans will always be criticised by outsiders for their stance against Benitez but it has shown we are not fickle and are prepared to stand by our principles.
It hasn’t been a fun season. We’ve all been behind the team, but we’d like to be behind the club and manager too. Hopefully the next choice of manager will enable us to do so.
James Clarke is the author of Moody Blues: Following the second-best team in Europe
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