All Leagues, EPL, Leagues POSTS
Wilkins back at the bridge
Published by DSAdmin on September 18, 2008
Are you a soccer fanatic? Do you have strong opinions about the game? Think you have the chops to write about it? Contact Us then...
Former legend returns as Big Phil’s Assistant First Team Coach.
Ray Wilkins has been appointed as the new assistant first team coach at Chelsea today, thereby replacing Steve Clarke who left the club earlier in the week to join become part of Gianfranco Zola’s revolution at London rivals West Ham.
Critics have seen this as a somewhat cynical ploy on behalf of the club to further ingratiate the clubs fans towards new manager Luiz Felipe Scolari as Wilkins appointment is likely to be welcomed by the vast majority of the Chelsea faithful. It seems that Scolari’s advisors have sought with the appointment of Wilkins to try and give the club some grounding in it’s past and locality. It is hard to imagine that when he was manager of Gremio, Brazil and Portugal, Scolari would have a desk filled with reports from trusted scouts and contacts across the globe, all pertaining to the fantastic coaching role Wilkins was doing at Queens Park Rangers and Watford…
What also makes the appointment more confusing is that Wilkins is best known for being one of the “safest”, and that adjective is chosen charitably, midfielders to have ever played for Chelsea and indeed, England. Wilkins’ lugubrious performances for club and country would have made David Batty’s ponderous midfield lumbering look like a Gascoigne-esque virtuoso display. This appointment is seemingly at odds with Chelsea owner Roman Abramovic’s desire to play attractive attacking football. However Scolari’s appointment in the first place is indicative of the chairman placing achievement ahead of entertainment. A quick glance through the managers’ history show’s that although he has been successful, Scolari’s teams have seldom played the football of the attractive or attacking kind. When he was manager of Gremio Scolari actively encouraged his players to foul the opposition, and is reported to have lambasted his players for not fouling enough in one Copa Libertadores game. The diving theatrics and questionable tactics of his Portuguese side in particular are well known not only for their effectiveness, but also for their lack of adherence to the true spirit of the beautiful game.
Wilkins appointment therefore smacks a little of tokenism. Certainly his most creative performance in recent times, was when he performed the voice over for the memorable “Tango” adverts. This is a man who seemed most at home when expressing his sage punditry on dour goalless draw between Foggia and Livorno. Should a game he was commenting on actually have the misfortune to be an incident packed thriller, Wilkins dry monotonous drone always seemed to persuade you that it really wasn’t that special, and that we should all have hankered to watch the 0-0 draw between Cagliari and Empoli instead.
Despite the clubs seeming trend of appointing the most dourly unimaginative wherever possible there appears to be no truth in the rumour that Chelsea are trying to bring in Ian Dowie as an attacking coach and stories linking prime minister Gordon Brown with the job of Scolari’s assistant manager also seem wide of the mark, though lets face it, he could do no worse a job of that than he is doing in his present employment.
And what makes this all the more bemusing? Chelsea have started the season superbly well, knocking in goals for fun. Maybe Scolari has hit upon a brilliant new ideology in football. That being to bore the opposition to an ineffectual, mind-numbing stupor (A feeling that regular viewers of “Big Brother” will no doubt be familiar with). And for all the criticism, it seems to be working. “T’riffic!” it certainly is Mr Wilkins.
**Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thetruthabout/ **
Loading ...
