Babalola Oluwatomiwa
Social Member
Chelsea football club's technical director, Michael Emenalo, has insisted that Roman Abrahamovic is confident Jose Mourinho has what it takes to turn the lots of the club around after an imperfect start to the season.
The Blues just before the international break are comfortably sitting on 16th position on the English Premier League table, and also lost out of their Capital One title defence in the 4th round, but the Stamford Bridge authorities believe the Portuguese manager will come good for the club.
The 50 year old former Nigerian international, who joined Chelsea in 2007 before rising to the technical director's position in 2011 opened up on the owner's position on the club's current position.
“When it comes to decisions, we feel confident we have an owner who has a very good track record, who is astute at making decisions of this kind at the right time to get us to where we want to be,” Emenalo says.
“We have never put ourselves in a position where we second-guess him. Part of the reasons he can make those decisions and be successful is because he has the information that a lot of people don’t.
“He has the whole picture of what is happening at the club, not just from certain individuals but every sector of the club. When he needs to make a decision he can make it.
“Right now, the statement from the owner and from the board comes from a belief that we are in a position to trust a manager who has delivered so much. We are in a position to trust a group of players who have delivered in the last couple of seasons. We are in a position to see that there is light at the end of the tunnel and therein lies our confidence ... that we can get out of the situation.”
What he can offer is an insight into one of English football’s most secretive, and wealthiest, club owners. “If you [calculated] the winningest owner he would probably be up there. He has done it and he is not always sitting down surrounded by all the trophies he has won. One thing that I knew from the very first day I joined the club is that this is not a toy for him. Nobody has a £1 billion toy. It doesn’t matter how wealthy you are.
“He is deeply, deeply passionate about football and about English football and this club. It means everything to him and that is why he makes the investment and wherever he is, he finds a way to watch matches. He cares deeply, so when things aren’t going well it affects him in the same way it affects a fan.
“Right now what is he thinking? He is feeling like the rest of us who are fans. More so. He is feeling that his precious club that he supports is not doing well. I think he goes through the varied emotions of ‘how can I help?’ and ‘what is going wrong?’ He is definitely looking forward to the club getting into a winning groove again. More importantly he wants to make sure that we don’t lose what we have achieved in the last 10 years, which has earned the respect of the football fraternity.”
“People always say that football is a matter of opinion, which I find sometimes extremely frustrating – football is a matter of expert opinions,” he says. “You can only get expert opinion if you are in the know. But sometimes if you are in the know, one of the things you learn about football is that two plus two doesn’t always equal four.
“We are in a situation where from the outside it looks like things don’t match up ... and people are desperate to understand why. We understand having been in this situation so many times, having seen the job the manager can do, the players we have, what we have gone through over the last 2½ seasons, that there is a negative momentum that we failed to arrest at a particular juncture.
“There are reasons, I could list them, but they would only be my guesses. There is no scientific evidence. There is no data to support me telling you, ‘This player is not playing well because he stayed two days later on holiday’. The only thing I can tell you is that we absolutely have a negative momentum that we have failed to reverse and we are working very hard to reverse that.”
The question of Mourinho’s behaviour since his return to Chelsea in the summer of 2013 has proved impossible to ignore. He has accumulated six FA fines totalling more than £140,000 and since April 2014 he has been disciplined by the FA on five separate occasions – from the row with referee Chris Foy over Ramires’s red card at Aston Villa to the recent shouting match with referee Jon Moss at half-time of the defeat by West Ham.
“As one of the big football clubs in the world, we understand that we have a responsibility to greater society and the football world,” Emenalo says. “To represent ourselves with a certain responsibility and he [Abramovich] takes that very, very seriously. He demands that we must behave in a way that justifies our elevated status. That is important to him, I can assure you that from having a knowledge of his feelings. We definitely make an effort as well as any club to make sure the club is represented very well. That is what he wants.”
“We all know that football is an emotion-inducing sport and business and ... every once in a while passions spill over. But again we understand the manager has shouldered an unfair responsibility in dealing with it. Rather than focus on whether he has done wrong, or not done wrong, we have a recognition that we have to make a contribution and help him.”
“A couple of years ago [summer of 2013] it was well documented we tried to get [Wayne] Rooney. We didn’t get Rooney and we still finished second and started strongly, so there is no correlation between whether we had a big transfer window or not. What is important to understand is that as a club we work as a unit to try to get things done and get it done the right way. We didn’t get Stones, not because we didn’t want him but because Everton didn’t want to sell Stones.”
“Every team, in every sport, that is not winning always reveals that air of vulnerability which people on the outside perceive to be that something is wrong. Everyone seems vulnerable. Everyone seems to need the next motivation hit to get things going again. I don’t know what losing the dressing room means, I really don’t. As a player myself I have never gone into a game thinking, ‘It is never going to happen for this manager’.
“What I do perceive is the players are taking responsibility and just like myself – the head of communications, the chairman, the owner – everybody is asking themselves the same question, ‘What can I do?’ ‘How can I help?’ The players are no different. The manager definitely is no different.” Telegraph
The Blues just before the international break are comfortably sitting on 16th position on the English Premier League table, and also lost out of their Capital One title defence in the 4th round, but the Stamford Bridge authorities believe the Portuguese manager will come good for the club.
The 50 year old former Nigerian international, who joined Chelsea in 2007 before rising to the technical director's position in 2011 opened up on the owner's position on the club's current position.
“When it comes to decisions, we feel confident we have an owner who has a very good track record, who is astute at making decisions of this kind at the right time to get us to where we want to be,” Emenalo says.
“We have never put ourselves in a position where we second-guess him. Part of the reasons he can make those decisions and be successful is because he has the information that a lot of people don’t.
“He has the whole picture of what is happening at the club, not just from certain individuals but every sector of the club. When he needs to make a decision he can make it.
“Right now, the statement from the owner and from the board comes from a belief that we are in a position to trust a manager who has delivered so much. We are in a position to trust a group of players who have delivered in the last couple of seasons. We are in a position to see that there is light at the end of the tunnel and therein lies our confidence ... that we can get out of the situation.”
What he can offer is an insight into one of English football’s most secretive, and wealthiest, club owners. “If you [calculated] the winningest owner he would probably be up there. He has done it and he is not always sitting down surrounded by all the trophies he has won. One thing that I knew from the very first day I joined the club is that this is not a toy for him. Nobody has a £1 billion toy. It doesn’t matter how wealthy you are.
“He is deeply, deeply passionate about football and about English football and this club. It means everything to him and that is why he makes the investment and wherever he is, he finds a way to watch matches. He cares deeply, so when things aren’t going well it affects him in the same way it affects a fan.
“Right now what is he thinking? He is feeling like the rest of us who are fans. More so. He is feeling that his precious club that he supports is not doing well. I think he goes through the varied emotions of ‘how can I help?’ and ‘what is going wrong?’ He is definitely looking forward to the club getting into a winning groove again. More importantly he wants to make sure that we don’t lose what we have achieved in the last 10 years, which has earned the respect of the football fraternity.”
“People always say that football is a matter of opinion, which I find sometimes extremely frustrating – football is a matter of expert opinions,” he says. “You can only get expert opinion if you are in the know. But sometimes if you are in the know, one of the things you learn about football is that two plus two doesn’t always equal four.
“We are in a situation where from the outside it looks like things don’t match up ... and people are desperate to understand why. We understand having been in this situation so many times, having seen the job the manager can do, the players we have, what we have gone through over the last 2½ seasons, that there is a negative momentum that we failed to arrest at a particular juncture.
“There are reasons, I could list them, but they would only be my guesses. There is no scientific evidence. There is no data to support me telling you, ‘This player is not playing well because he stayed two days later on holiday’. The only thing I can tell you is that we absolutely have a negative momentum that we have failed to reverse and we are working very hard to reverse that.”
The question of Mourinho’s behaviour since his return to Chelsea in the summer of 2013 has proved impossible to ignore. He has accumulated six FA fines totalling more than £140,000 and since April 2014 he has been disciplined by the FA on five separate occasions – from the row with referee Chris Foy over Ramires’s red card at Aston Villa to the recent shouting match with referee Jon Moss at half-time of the defeat by West Ham.
“As one of the big football clubs in the world, we understand that we have a responsibility to greater society and the football world,” Emenalo says. “To represent ourselves with a certain responsibility and he [Abramovich] takes that very, very seriously. He demands that we must behave in a way that justifies our elevated status. That is important to him, I can assure you that from having a knowledge of his feelings. We definitely make an effort as well as any club to make sure the club is represented very well. That is what he wants.”
“We all know that football is an emotion-inducing sport and business and ... every once in a while passions spill over. But again we understand the manager has shouldered an unfair responsibility in dealing with it. Rather than focus on whether he has done wrong, or not done wrong, we have a recognition that we have to make a contribution and help him.”
“A couple of years ago [summer of 2013] it was well documented we tried to get [Wayne] Rooney. We didn’t get Rooney and we still finished second and started strongly, so there is no correlation between whether we had a big transfer window or not. What is important to understand is that as a club we work as a unit to try to get things done and get it done the right way. We didn’t get Stones, not because we didn’t want him but because Everton didn’t want to sell Stones.”
“Every team, in every sport, that is not winning always reveals that air of vulnerability which people on the outside perceive to be that something is wrong. Everyone seems vulnerable. Everyone seems to need the next motivation hit to get things going again. I don’t know what losing the dressing room means, I really don’t. As a player myself I have never gone into a game thinking, ‘It is never going to happen for this manager’.
“What I do perceive is the players are taking responsibility and just like myself – the head of communications, the chairman, the owner – everybody is asking themselves the same question, ‘What can I do?’ ‘How can I help?’ The players are no different. The manager definitely is no different.” Telegraph
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