PREMIER LEAGUE: The shocking decline of the club's record signing proves a salutary lesson for Roman Abramovich

MAYBE IT was the speedboat that did for Andriy Shevchenko.

It was a couple of weeks into the Ukrainian’s first season at Chelsea and his sponsors, Reebok, wanted their man to front a campaign aimed at cutting away the froth and frippery associated with being a modern-day sporting superstar and reveal the inner Sheva.

So, naturally enough, they had him travel to the launch on board a shiny new motor-boat, bouncing along the Thames, Bond-style, before leaping onto a red-carpeted jetty and strolling into an exclusive riverside club accompanied by winsome, perky-chested dolly-birds.

Now, as a general rule, travelling anywhere by speedboat – even if it is at the request of your over-eager kit manufacturer – must be classified as an act of hubris, the equivalent of releasing a perfume called “Invincible” or commissioning a statue of yourself made entirely of cheese.

And, sure enough, those damnable fates have finally had their revenge on poor Shevchenko: three miserable years, 53 starts and 22 goals later, he has been sent packing back to Dynamo Kiev.

That is not quite the footballing equivalent of being dispatched to the gulag – my history is fuzzy, but I will wager good money that those who dared to cross Uncle Joe did not travel to Siberia with their pockets laden with over €21 million in wages – but, even so, it is hardly the exit Shevchenko can have dreamt about while he was casting that plume of silver spray on the Thames in August 2006.

Roman Abramovich, for whom signing Shevchenko was apparently something of a pet project, must also have wished the whole soap opera could have assumed a Dallas-style finale, whereby he would awake in a cold sweat on his satin sheets and immediately rush to his bathroom to find Shevchenko doing keepy-ups in his Milan kit.

Sadly, this has been no dream and the whole fiasco might serve as a reminder to Abramovich that, when it comes to identifying possible signings, and particularly €34 million ones, matters are best left in the hands of the professionals.

As it is, the process of airbrushing Shevchenko out of west London history will now surely begin in earnest.

Chelsea are usually pretty ruthless when it comes to this sort of thing – Gianluca Vialli has more photographs in his honour in the stadium’s press room than Abramovich’s bete noire, Jose Mourinho – and it was a surprise, when walking down the club’s self-styled “Avenue of Legends” at Stamford Bridge on Saturday, not to see the giant image of Shevchenko sporting an ominously blacked-out face or, indeed, ripped down altogether.

Give it a week and Daniel Sturridge will doubtless be taking pride of place on the old Shed wall. For Shevchenko, however, it will not be so easy to forget. For all his previous triumphs – and there have been plenty of them – the last three years have been an unmitigated disaster and represent an indelible stain on his footballing CV.

All footballers dwindle with the passage of time but Shevchenko’s decline has been especially precipitous.

Having arrived at Chelsea as the dead-eyed striker who wreaked havoc with Dynamo and Milan, he took his leave bearing an uncanny resemblance to Robbie Savage, complete with ridiculous blond tresses, and sporting that expression of pained isolation worn by all fading athletes who, while maintaining a determinedly proud facade, privately realise they are the butt of a hundred cruel jokes.

It all serves to reaffirm the old adage that few footballers, no matter how decorated or venerated, can choose the manner of their departures. Sooner or later, they will be asked, or told, to shuffle off into the sunset and accept a pay-as-you-play deal with Huddersfield Town, or worse.

Robbie Fowler, a man who does not seem to have had any discernible passion for football for at least a decade, is another now reduced to performing-monkey status, although at least his preferred choice of retirement home – North Queensland Fury – is a touch more glamorous than Kiev. Michael Owen, meanwhile, must have feared whiling away his days at Newcastle United, the world’s best attended freak-show, until Manchester United inexplicably threw him a lifeline this summer.

For the most part, there is precious little dignity to be found in the fag-end of a career and maybe it is time for the Premier League – which has always fancied itself as an offshoot of old-fashioned show-business – to adopt one of Hollywood’s golden rules and remember to always leave the audience wanting more.

As Shevchenko would testify, it is far better to leave the stage to tumultuous applause and tearful eulogies than mute indifference, even if you do happen to be driving a speed-boat.