Premier League: Chelsea top four bid in doubt after latest managerial farce

Rafa Benitez's post-match comments caused controversy last night

Rafa Benitez has once again highlighted what an impossible job the Chelsea hotseat is. Luke Moore thinks the ex-Liverpool man was well within his rights to make his feelings known...

In what was actually a quite well-measured, obviously pre-prepared set of statements yesterday Rafa Benitez - already arch-enemy of the Chelsea fans due to some ill-informed yet completely innocuous comments while Liverpool manager - further alienated himself from the Stamford Bridge faithful after last night's FA Cup game against Middlesbrough.

The saddening aspects of all this furore around Benitez's appointment are all but ignored, and they are as follows:

- His original comments as Liverpool manager were, to all intents and purposes, completely harmless. If you take them word-for-word, you'd have to be pretty thin-skinned and altogether quite precious to actually take offence at them. He was managing another club and his remarks were clearly meant to tap into Liverpool's proud passion and history. He was essentially doing his job. Sir Alex Ferguson has been punchier plenty of times before and since on a whole range of subjects.

- Rafa Benitez is actually quite a good manager. He's won lots of pots - two La Ligas and a UEFA Cup with Valencia and a Champions League, an FA Cup and European Super Cup with Liverpool, as well as a second place Premier League finish (how they'd kill for that now). This is no rookie. It's surprising that, while personally he will always divide opinion, there should be no debate about what he has achieved and what he's capable of achieving as a manager. For instance, lots of people find Harry Redknapp disagreeable but there's at least an admission he's quite a good manager. With Benitez, it appears there is a constant open season on his track record, which, as I've already mentioned is actually quite good.

But the most salient point about the comments that Benitez made is that he is of course absolutely right. Chelsea fans need to support the club to help them achieve a top four finish this season and this sideshow, this bedsheet circus, this ship of fools that seeks to undermine the manager at every turn is so counter-productive as to be laughable. 

What the fans should be doing of course is protesting at the regime that fostered this ludicrous environment where every manager walks around with the air of a member of Stalin's cabinet, terrified that at any moment, one wrong comment, result or team selection is going to send them to a sort of footballing gulag where their only gainful employment will be in the company of Adrian Chiles on the ITV sofa, softened by the promise of an oligarch's payoff to forever hold their peace. They can't do this however because they've been dancing with the devil for so long now that they can't up and leave the ballroom when he turns out to have terrible personal hygiene issues. They're in for a penny, in for a pound. Or to be more precise, a billion pounds. 

Supporters can, of course, point to the numerous trophies picked up during the hire-and-fire years, including the European Cup. But this has cost vast amounts of cash, and who knows what Chelsea could have won had Roman's trigger finger been slightly less itchy. For all their money, Chelsea still cannot legitimately call themselves a European super power; they've not yet 'painted the world blue' as Peter Kenyon once famously said.

The ultimate feeling one emerges with from this latest saga in west London though is one of overriding sadness, as the game in this country adds yet another chapter to what is fast becoming a money-soaked Wodehouse farce with Roman Abramovich cast as Lady Constance Keeble and Rafa Benitez just the latest in a long line of unfairly cast Freddie Threepwoods. 

If the tragedy continues at this pace, the smart money would surely be laying Chelsea to finish in the top four at 1.341/3. Arsenal are in decent form (despite yet more misguided press attitudes) having only lost three of their last 19 league games and could pip them to fourth behind Spurs. Maybe, just maybe, if that happens we could persuade Mr Abramovich to leave Blandings for good and hand us our soap opera back. 

After all, under the 'leadership' of the FA and the Premier League, we were doing just fine being hapless without him anyway.