All change at the Bridge

Building, building everywhere and yet much at the House of Chelsea is about deconstruction. It is Ken Bates's parallel universe. What goes up under the all-seeing eye of the Chelsea chairman - the hotels, the restaurants, the Chelsea Village and the new stand - is accompanied by what comes down - Gianluca Vialli's first Chelsea team, the European dream, the millionaire assembly line. One blue period closes, another opens.

To be at Stamford Bridge on Thursday afternoon, or any stage of the season for that matter, was to be in a hard hat area. The scaffolding, the cranes, the on-going work and the business lunches in Fishnets restaurant are testimony to Chelsea's ambition. They wanted to be big and Bates has spent, spent, spent. Glenn Hoddle, Ruud Gullit, Vialli, three of the most persuasive names in continental football, were recruited. The manager before Hoddle was David Webb. Chelsea finished 11th in 1993. They were a resolutely mid-table club.

Now they are one of the most glamorous and highly regarded in Europe. There has been success, unquestionably. The FA Cup in 1997, Gullit's breakthrough silverware. The League Cup and the Cup Winners' Cup a year later, also a Super Cup. Last season there was a third place finish just four points behind Manchester United. It brought the Champions League with it. The Chelsea were coming. When, 32 days ago, they were 3-0 up at half-time against Barcelona, it seemed Chelsea had arrived.

At least in Europe it did. All the while, though, there was a domestic grumble about Chelsea's obvious disregard for English football. They lost at Watford, Sunderland and Sheffield Wednesday. Their European edifice was being constructed without an English base. When the edifice collapsed as it did in the Nou Camp, all that was left was acrimony, diffident foreigners and, of course, the dear old FA Cup.

Bates has stood by Vialli, and even ushered the Italian into a solo lap of honour at Stamford Bridge last Sunday, but Vialli, very publicly, is not standing by all of his players. He said so after the deflating defeat at Old Trafford. Vialli had got his priorities wrong. It is time for change. Youth and Englishness are new Chelsea virtues.

Sitting in the Chelsea dressing room that Manchester day must have been an unusual experience. As news filtered through of Vialli's critical words, Chelsea's players must have looked at each other and thought "me or him". It was no morale booster. Frank Leboeuf chose not to go into his memories of that moment on Thursday. When asked, however, how the Chelsea spirit has been since, Leboeuf replied: "Nothing special. I say hello, I say goodbye, we have dinner and I am friendly with my team-mates. But that's it." Not great then, Frank.

The degree of Leboeuf's honesty is to be appreciated; plenty of players would have delivered platitudes. But for Leboeuf and several Chelsea others, today at Wembley could be their last stand. Didier Deschamps' disaffection is undisguised, while it seems that Gianfranco Zola, Dan Petrescu and Roberto Di Matteo have exhausted their Bridge life. The surprise will be if they stay. In such circumstances, no wonder the mood is nothing special.

Deschamps aside, the other three and Leboeuf can at least depart having been part of a significant rising. Leboeuf, now 32, takes pride in that. "After 25 years of nothing, we won four trophies in two years. People don't forget that. The fans won't forget me and I won't forget them. I think Chelsea has become a big club. When I came here they wanted to be famous and big. They were unknown outside England. Now, and the foreigners did a lot of it, they are one of the biggest names in Europe. We reached what we wanted to reach. That's perfect."

Leboeuf's situation after five o'clock is less so. Bought from Strasbourg by Gullit for Stg£2.5 million four years ago, Leboeuf has realised his potential at Chelsea. He has won 16 French caps with them, won a World Cup medal while with them, not bad for someone who was playing semi-professionally into his 20s and whose father once took out an advert in France Football so concerned was he that his son was being overlooked.

Leboeuf has cherished his belated fame and fortune all the more. He has, by his own tongue: "Found everything I wanted here in London. The good life, the good club, the reception." He wanted to become a Chelsea hero and hopes that he has done so. His words and phrases, though, are increasingly past tense. Nothing has been said directly by Vialli or anyone else, but Leboeuf is gearing himself up for a game he clearly considers will be his last - even if he does have two years left on his contract.

"You read so many things and you hear the manager talking," he said, "so many players are going to go away. It may be my turn but we'll see after the game. It's not really my problem, it's the club's problem. If it has to happen, it has to happen. You have to be ready - because certain people think you are not good enough - to leave. I know it can happen so I have to be ready for it.

"I don't want to leave. I want to finish my career at Chelsea, but Luca said again in an interview on Wednesday that even if we win the FA Cup some people will leave. I have to ask him who he means because in the newspapers my name is always first on the list. You know there is always something behind this. There are others. We know, we are not blind.

"I don't think that I have had a bad season but maybe Luca wants to start a new project, build something else. He has never said that I am not part of his plans, so I might be here still, I haven't packed. But I understand that the manager has to change people and for the club this is good. There will be a new generation." Part of Vialli's difficulty is that, as Leboeuf is 32, Zola is 33, Deschamps is 31. They are all on huge salaries - Leboeuf's is Stg£30,000 a week, approximately. Who would buy ageing players on such wages and with declining re-sale prospects? Not Chelsea, well, not any more.

It could be argued that Bates had to adopt this strategy in order to catapult Chelsea into the big time in the first place, but Vialli is now left with a smattering of players he no longer wants and yet has to motivate them one more time to win a trophy that was third on the priority list last August.

Leboeuf is aware of the conundrum. "I may be too expensive. I think for a player like me, I'm 32, the club knows it won't get its money back. The same reason Chelsea want to sell some old players is the same reason no-one wants to buy them. That's it, exactly. It's important we find a compromise."

Having said that, there are only a handful of clubs Leboeuf would move to and he explained recent speculation linking him to Lyon was because he has bought two flats there. It was an investment for tax purposes, not an application to join the club. His agent tells him that there has been no interest from anywhere. The uncertainty is "restrictive", although Leboeuf said that he is not the kind of character to worry unduly. On that money, who would? "If I'm not in Luca's plans I could say: `I don't care, I've got two years left, instead of playing football on a Saturday afternoon, I will play golf.' But that's not the way I was born, that's not my cup of tea."

And then he was off in his silver sports car. Meanwhile, Ken Bates strode by purposefully. The sound of hammers continued. Building, still building.