Thursday, February 21, 2008

Playing Ballack over Lampard would Make Grant Sacked, Says Beckenbauer

Legendary footballers Franz Beckenbauer recently said that Chelsea manager Avram Grant should consider midfielder Frank Lampard ahead of fellow midfielder Michael Ballack while finalizing his starting line up. Otherwise, Grant might be sacked. Well, the Bayern Munich president has logic behind his claim. To him, as Lampard is a Londoner and he is the hero of Chelsea, a London based club, Grant would sacked within short time if he continues playing Ballack over Lampard.

Goal.com reported:

But Bayern Munich president Beckenbauer reckons that Lampard should always come ahead of former Allianz Arena star Ballack in the pecking order. Why? Because this is Chelsea, a London team.
"Lampard is Chelsea’s hero," said the Kaiser to The Sun. "If Grant keeps playing Ballack over him, he will be fired in one week or so. Maybe there is a way for both of them to feature - one playing a bit more offensively and the other one a bit defensively. There must be a way," he continued. "Somewhere on the pitch there should be a place for Ballack.”

I do not agree with Beckenbauer on this matter. Chelsea is a professional team who has lots of success in the history until now. The starting line up of a professional team must include the physically fit players who are at their best in the given point of time. It does not matter who are local players or who are from abroad. I am not sure if anything like Beckenbauer indicated happens to Avram Grant. I think, both Lampard and Ballack still have a lot to offer for Chelsea in the days to come. The main problem is that they were out of action with injury and have come back recently. So, if they get back their match fitness then both of them can play in the starting line up of Chelsea. In fact, it would be a huge boost for the club.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous3:24 PM

    Its not hard to see, Grant is a lesser personality that Jose was. Grant has no vigor nor top leadership skills to head such a strong charactered team. The Chelsea squad is full of insanely accomplished and talented stars, if you allow this kind of group to run rampant without a countering force, you will end up with a deteriorating side that has been snowballing since Grant took over.

    People try to give credit to Grant for keeping a good record since Jose departed. Wake the f up, its Mourinho's team! All Grant is doing is shepherding them off onto the pitch, standing around pretending to be this world class manager which he is definitely not.

    Its a job, and a very big job to take over. What do we all do on a new big job where you just edged yourself in due to a hook up? We try to impress and play a part that is beyond us. Now and then you will get a shark swimmer that can keep up and learn rapidly. In Grants case he clearly has not been able to stay abreast of the entire Chelsea FC emotion. He has no star quality, you cant have a man like this lead a star team.

    In order for Avram to succeed he would have needed to be a huge personality to give such a team belief and a high self esteem. This leads me to a side-note, I feel Roman brought Avram in due to his wet behind the ear quality. He is new to all this Prem stuff, this allows Roman to put his 2 cents in whenever he feels like it as Grant wont counter anything he says with any force that is. This is exactly why Roman got rid of Jose! Mourinho was simply brilliant and on top of that he had the charisma and character to lead such a massive team. The players more than likely wouldn't question his superiority. This absolutely lead to problems with Roman and Jose, as such a strong people would surely bash heads given the time. So nix Jose and bring in stupid Grant with minimal training and no history as a player.

    Come on Roman, back down off your "Im the Man" mentality for a moment, humble yourself and think about what's best for the fans and for the team! The only result of the current scenario will be defeat and a team that will slowly disperse. Not to mention lack of emotion from the fans that keep this great club moving. Grant may be your mate and he may pray to the same god but none of this matters in football, esp this level of footie.

    Bite your lip, call Jose, sweet him up a bit and bring him back....sacking him surely goes down as a mistake! And although Im sure a man like Roman doesn't make many mistakes.....no one and I mean NO ONE, not even the most powerful men in the world are perfect. There will be a decision made some day that will turn sour, its just how life goes.

    It takes a real man to admit when he is wrong, it takes an even bigger man to correct it.

    ReplyDelete