In my naivety I'd thought a lot of the AVB sack talk was just newspaper mischief-making. My basis for thinking that was I thought SURELY (surely!) Abo had a plan and was trying to do something a bit different and was looking for someone to rebuild the place from the bottom up. And thus would give AVB a real run at it. In other words, I thought Abo had some clue. Wrong!
What Abo actually wanted wasn't change - he wanted change and the CL at the same time. He wanted the best of both worlds, which is fudging absurd - those two goals are basically mutually exclusive at a club so desperately in need of change and a long-term vision. In this sense AVB's task was impossible.
That impossible task was further compounded by the manager's own failings, coupled with negative player power. Watching the WBA game yesterday, it was so obvious that not only had AVB lost the players, more worryingly, he couldn't even put out a team with a discernible shape or game plan. They were really, really bad. And the players - Drogba aside, who showed real heart and fight to his enormous credit - couldn't give a toss.
Put it all together - Abo's impossible brief, AVB's own limitations, player power out of control - and in hindsight he never had a chance.
Finally, this is the problem with a non-football man trying to run a football club. Abo probably thought - in a most literal and dozy of senses - that he could just find another Jose. Young Portuguese guy with a couple of trophies...easy peasy! Which makes a delicious irony of the fact that Jose was right all along - he is a Special One. Jose told Abo this 6 years ago, but only today is Abo hearing it. A wise football man would have known Jose was right all along. And one other lovely irony - Abo actually had the right man! Ancelotti....and he sacked him!! fudging loltastic.