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Five CL Final Questions For Chelsea...
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With Chelsea missing key players through suspension and possibly injury in the Champions League final, Matt Stanger asks five questions they need to consider...
The Champions League Final Friday Quiz - The Questions
Since there's an English team in the Champions League final, we thought it would be most appropriate to give you a quiz on those that have come before them...
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2007-08 (Jose Mourinho, mutual consent, Chelsea, September 20)
In Football365's pre-season predictions the usual question about the first manager out prompted a pretty unanimous response: Chris Hutchings of course. In the end, Hutchings was actually fourth through the door behind Jose Mourinho, Sammy Lee and Martin Jol. Pre-season the odds on Mourinho being the first were around 100/1, but after a 1-1 draw at home to Rosenberg in September following two Premier League games without a win (leaving Chelsea in an unacceptable fifth), Mourinho was out on his arse. Roman wanted results and performances and Mourinho was delivering neither.
2006-07 (Iain Dowie, sacked, Charlton, November 13)
The club that had stuck by Alan Curbishley for 15 years and become a model for small clubs in 'how to do things properly', panicked after Iain Dowie had been in charge for just 15 games. Alright, he had only won two of the Addicks' first 12 Premier League games but the Charlton board were used to that kind of run coming at the end of the season and shoved Dowie out of the door. A month later, his successor Les Reed was sacked and replaced by Alan Pardew - himself sacked by the Hammers in December. The pre-season favourite? Chris Coleman - who actually clung on until April.
2005-06 (Alain Perrin, sacked, Portsmouth, November 24)
A year to the day after Harry Redknapp walked out of Portsmouth, Alain Perrin was sacked by the club with a record of just four wins from 20 Premier League games. He'd kept Pompey in the Premiership the season before - and earned himself a lot of friends with a 4-1 win over Southampton - but spending money on the likes of Collins Mbesuma and Azar Karadas did little to endear him to anyone, especially Milan Mandaric. He went back cap in hand for Redknapp and two weeks later, Judas was back in place and forgiven.
2004-05 (Paul Sturrock, sacked, Southampton, August 23)
Two games of the Premiership season (one of them a victory over Blackburn) was enough to convince world-renowned football expert Rupert Lowe that Paul Sturrock was not the man to be in charge of Southampton. Unfortunately for Saints fans, he decided that Steve Wigley was the right man and thus began four years of utter mentalness on the south coast. Sturrock even managed to beat Bobby Robson to the sack, with Lowe clearly on some kind of a mission to make Freddie Shepherd look patient, sensible and tolerant.
2003-2004 (Glenn Hoddle, sacked, Spurs, September 21)
A 3-1 defeat at home to Southampton was the final straw for the Tottenham board, who had backed Hoddle with large sums for signings like Helder Postiga, Fredi Kanoute and Bobby Zamora and were rewarded with just four points from Tottenham's opening six games. "Unfortunately, the start to this season has been our worst since the Premiership was formed," said chairman Daniel Levy, who had wanted an improvement on the tenth-place finish of Hoddle's previous season. The pre-season favourite had been Chris Coleman...didn't he do well to hang on?
2002-03 (Peter Reid, sacked, Sunderland, October 7)
After finishing just one point above the relegation zone the previous season (and scoring an embarrassing 28 goals in 38 games) and spending £6.75million on Tore Andre Flo (and £3.5m on Matt Piper, £3m on Stephen Wright and £3.25m on Marcus Stewart) Reidy needed a fine start to the season. Instead, his Sunderland side won twice in nine games and the man with the Monkey Heid was given the heave-ho, with Howard Wilkinson coming in to steady the ship. And didn't that go well, girls and boys...
2001-02 (Peter Taylor, sacked, Leicester City, September 30)
From England caretaker manager to being sacked by Leicester City in the space of 12 months, Peter Taylor certainly didn't help his cause by paying £5m for Ade Akinbiyi. The 2001-02 season started with 5-0 and 4-0 defeats and barely got better - Leicester had just five points from eight games when Taylor was sacked. He vowed to prove the Leicester board wrong. How's that going, Pete?
2000-01 (Gianluca Vialli, sacked, Chelsea, September 12)
"We departed with the usual Italian formalities of a bear hug and a kiss," said chairman Ken Bates, which probably explains why Gianluca Vialli took the news well and hotfooted it out of Stamford Bridge as fast as his legs would carry him. Vialli had delivered Champions League football and several trophies but had apparently fallen out with several senior players like Gianfranco Zola, Didier Deschamps and Dan Petrescu. Hence, he was only given five games of the season (winning just one) before he was given the boot. Mind you, if you lose to Chris Hutchings' Bradford, what can you expect?
1999-00 (Ruud Gullit, sacked, Newcastle, August 28)
Clearly Ruud wanted to be sacked - leaving Alan Shearer on the bench for a St James' Park clash with Sunderland is tantamount to writing a resignation letter. The 2-1 defeat left the Toon with just one point from their five opening Premiership games and Gullit was out of the door one year and one day after he replaced Kenny Dalglish. While his eventual successor Bobby Robson would literally lose the dressing room, Gullit did it in a metaphorical sense - though it didn't help that he bought some utter s***e. Silvio Maric for £3,3m, anyone?
1998-99 (Kenny Daglish, sacked, Newcastle, August 27)
Despite delivering Champions League victory over Barcelona and an FA Cup final appearance the season before, Freddie Shepherd was not a man to linger if he got it in his head that change was needed. He decided foreign (and Gullit) was the way to go and sacked Dalglish after two draws in the opening two games of the season. His legacy - in the form of Shay Given, Gary Speed and Nobby Solano - lingered longer than the Scotsman himself. And of course the Gullit thing went really blody well, didn't it?
Sarah Winterburn
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