The end of the line for Chelsea?

^^Don't really buy that at all, otherwise you'd never see players joining the likes of Madrid etc. Clubs with a pedigree (and in modern times, Chelsea do have that), offering huge wages and CL football will always be able to attract good players regardless of whether their manager has a long-term future at the club.

At the end of the day the worst that can happen is that a new manager comes in, doesn't like you and you have to spend a season on the bench picking up £5m before getting sold on somewhere else. No biggie.
 
Actually I think its a big thing - its all about tactics, one manager may favour 4-4-2 for example and therefore bring in a top quality striker to partner Drogba in majority of games before he is sacked, and another manager comes in and reverts to 4-3-3 and has to play newer striker either out of position or from the bench (you know 9 times out of 10 Drogba will get the big games)

Ok no one player is capable fo playing every game but it matters to the player coming in how important the games he takes part in are, imo anyway
 
The situation you describe didn't stop Anelka joining them though, did it?

I understand what you are getting at, that uncertainty about the long-term future of the manager can potentially affect team selection. I just don't think it is that big a deal to most players if they are in line to get huge wages, apart from anything else there are not all that many clubs around these days paying big wages with guarenteed managerial stability. Empirical evidence also refutes your claim, otherwise how would Real Madrid be able to sign anyone, managers are lucky to get 2 seasons there these days (looking at it, since 2003 NO manager has lasted 2 full seasons at the club, in fact since the 1980s only ONE manager has ever lasted that long). Kaka joined them, Ronaldo joined them, Benzema joined them, Ramos joined them all in the last summer, can they be sure Pellegrini will still be in charge by the time their contract expires? I doubt it.
 
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Anelka is a bit of a strange one though - before Chelsea just look at his transfer history

He has done well since arriving no question, but at the time of the transfer it was a bit of a risk whether he would settle surely? (ie not a premium/ top line
purchase)

Also big difference between Spain and England....tax on the wages. Even if a new signing gets £100k a week, its actually only going to be £50k in his pocket - where as in Spain its going to be significantly higher than that, and from a historical point of view certainly continental players are always fascinated by Real Madrid's history, something Chelsea can only really boast about to domestic players imo (of course Chelsea still havent won CL in any form have they - not sure about the lesser Euro cups of old, and their domestic success is really only from the last few years)

there IS an attraction with high wages undoubtedly - but there are also significant negative points also (Im not saying Liverpool, Arsenal or Utd have any significant improvements on that - but each have certain things that could sway judgement either way)

all imo of course :)
 
Yep like I said in an earlier post pedigree comes into it - what I'm driving at is that there is a whole host of reasons why players would join a club even if there is instability at manager level. Chelsea, as the song goes, are a supposedly "**** club no history" but if you look at their record since Abramovich took over they are consistently there or thereabouts in terms of reaching the latter stages of the CL and competing for domestic trophies. No they haven't won the CL yet but neither have Real Madrid since 2002 and if you look at the UEFA rankings they are 3rd based on performances over the past 5 years: http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/data/method4/trank2010.html. Players will notice this even if it doesn't quite have the glamour of the Bernabeau, hence they have been able to attract so many big names during that period.

Regarding the tax thing, that's not really relevant if we're saying that it's the risk of the manager losing his job which is scaring players off. Besides, even with 50% tax Chelsea's wages are still not too shabby. Also the law has changed in Spain, from this year foreigners who are new to the country earning over €600k/year (i.e. the vast majority of La Liga imports) will now have to pay 43% tax not 24%. So that has drastically reduced the amount of take home pay players can earn by moving to Spain.

Obviously with the depreciation of Sterling getting paid in pounds isn't the greatest these days but that's a whole nother debate... I just think that there are so many good things going for Chelsea that as a player you'd be a fool to dismiss it out of hand due to concerns about RA wanting to switch managers. Sure in an ideal world where someone like Barcelona is banging on your door you might choose to go there (especially if Spanish due to tax) but not every player will have that luxury.
 
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Anelka is a bit of a strange one though - before Chelsea just look at his transfer history
Click to expand...

He was settled at Liverpool to be fair to him, it was Houlier who didn't want to stump up the cash to sign him up.
 
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