Johnson's late killer blow increases pressure on Villas-Boas

SOCCER: ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUETHE OLD immutable law of the ex ensured Glen Johnson would be the man to pop up with the late winner that helped his current club beat his old employers yesterday.

It is a law that was never likely to apply to Fernando Torres, who was granted only a fleeting appearance in the final stages but still managed to convey the impression of a man out of touch with whatever qualities persuaded Roman Abramovich to spend €58 million to take him to Stamford Bridge last January.

In a dozen attempts, Chelsea have still not managed to beat a Liverpool team managed by Kenny Dalglish. A 1-0 defeat in the equivalent fixture last season, when Torres made a spectacularly hapless debut a few days after his arrival at Stamford Bridge, did no good to Carlo Ancelotti’s hopes of remaining at the club that he had led to a league and cup double the previous season. Now there is the question of how long Andre Villas-Boas, his expensively acquired successor, can cling on to the position.

Three of Chelsea’s last four league matches in the past month have ended in varying forms of ignominy. The representatives of a club into which the owner has poured around €880 million would not have expected to lose by the only goal to Queens Park Rangers at humble Loftus Road.

The subsequent 5-3 home defeat at Arsenal’s hands would have been simply unthinkable during the reign of Jose Mourinho, whose achievements his fellow Portuguese was employed to emulate.

That was followed by a 1-0 victory at Ewood Park, at a time when beating Blackburn is no indication of a team’s quality. And then came yesterday’s last-minute collapse, the result of the sort of indiscipline that would have had Mourinho frothing at the mouth.

Abramovich paid FC Porto €15 million in compensation to allow Villas-Boas to leave before the end of his contract. Had he stayed, no doubt he would have maintained the extraordinary success of his first season, when his players won four trophies, including the Europa League, and went through the Portuguese league season unbeaten.

But winning the Europa Cup at the age of 33 is not the same as winning the European Cup at 41, as Mourinho did.

“The owner did not pay €15 million to get me out of Porto to pay another fortune to get me out of here,” Villas-Boas said last night, with more bravado than realism.

If Abramovich is not distracted from football matters by his attempt to convince the high court in Britain it would be wrong to order him to pass over a substantial part of his bank balance to former partner Boris Berezovsky, he will think nothing of paying whatever amount of compensation is stipulated in his young manager’s contract.

This is a man who shocked the art world by spending €74 million at auction on works by Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud three years ago, smashing records of all kinds to please his girlfriend.

Over Villas-Boas’s shoulder lurks the shadow of Guus Hiddink, newly unemployed as a result of Turkey’s inability to make it to Euro 2012. That failure, and Russia’s non-qualification for the 2010 World Cup, are unlikely to damage the Dutchman’s standing in the eyes of Abramovich, who retains a warm memory of the way he stepped into the breach following the dismissal of Luiz Felipe Scolari in 2009. His time may come again if the Russian becomes convinced that doing nothing would result in Villas-Boas having another crack at the Europa Cup next season.

For all Villas-Boas’s talk of setting out to “build something new at this club”, there have been few signs of original thinking since his arrival. John Obi Mikel is apparently still his idea of an acceptable holding midfield player, although that may change after yesterday’s first half.

The 24-year-old allowed himself to be dispossessed by Charlie Adam in the 33rd minute, setting up the slick exchange of passes that led to the opening goal. Claude Makelele could play until his 100th birthday without committing such a faux-pas. No longer coveted teenage prodigy, Mikel did not reappear after the interval.

With John Terry and Ashley Cole now on the downslope of their careers, and David Luiz so erratic, Chelsea’s most urgent problem concerns a defence which Mourinho once made as formidable as George Graham’s famous Arsenal rearguard. Villas-Boas said last night he has the players with whom to address the deficiencies. His ability to deploy them in the coming weeks will determine whether he sees out the season.

Guardian Service