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Grant Turns Down Chelsea Return as Director of Footballl

Written by Adeleke Afolayan

Thursday, 29 May 2008

Avram Grant has hit back at former Chelsea coach Jose Mourinho who described the Israeli as a manager with “the philosophy of a loser” because he failed to win any trophy this season with the London club.

According to Grant, if he had taken over from Mourinho from the start of the season he would have won at least a trophy but as the Portuguese tactician had left the club in shambles, it was difficult winning a trophy.

Grant had led the Blues from far behind early Premier League pacesetters Arsenal to finish second, three points behind Manchester United; to whom he also lost the final of the Champions League.

Chelsea also reached the final of the Carling Cup only to lose 2-1 after extra time to Tottenham Hotspur before going through an embarrassing 1-0 FA Cup quarterfinal defeat in the hands of Championship side Barnsley.

It was this string of near misses that led to the sacking of Grant only eight months into his four year contract, a move that has seen a host of top coaches in Europe linked with the plum job at Stamford Bridge.

Top on the list are former AS Monaco and Juventus boss Didier Deschamps who said he is on the list of wanted coaches at Stamford Bridge, and rather surprisingly, Blackburn's manager Mark Hughes.

Others linked with the job are Benfica coach Luis Felipe Scolari and Inter Milan boss Roberto Mancini who looks set to be replaced by Mourinho at the San Siro despite winning a third consecutive Italian league title.

Scolari is also wanted by Manchester City whose Thai owner Thaksin Sinawatra has kept annoyingly and resolutely mute about the future of current manager Sven Goran Eriksson. The Swede’s position at the Lancashire club remains in doubt.

Meanwhile, Frank Rijkaard and Guus Hiddink who both were the early frontrunners for the coaching job at Chelsea, have fallen in the pecking order of prospective tacticians available to Chelsea.

The man himself, Grant, has been linked with Eriksson’s job at Manchester City. He also declared he turned down the opportunity to return to his old job as Director of Football at Chelsea saying it would be the wrong job to engage in.

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