Former Chelsea manager, Avram Grant reckons that Chelsea’s habit of changing coaches has made them lack identity. Now the current coach of the Ghanaian national team, Grant led Chelsea to the Champions League final after replacing Jose Mourinho in 2007 but was fired by the club afterwards. The Blues have however appointed 11 players after he left.
He told ESPN FC, “I think the problem is that Chelsea don’t have an identity of how they play. Arsenal have, Pep Guardiola has; they don’t. They want to buy players and win titles but they cannot have an identity because they change coach every year or two. On the other hand they have the director of football Michael Emenalo doing a good job, buying good young players, so the squad is fantastic — the most balanced in England. The one thing that is stable there is the owner Roman Abramovich, Marina Granovskaia, a club director and the director of football. If they changed Marina and Michael every year, they couldn’t do well.”
Grant also praised Chelsea’s current coach, Antonio Conte, adding that he came at the right time, at the time when the players were ready for change.
“It was so bad the year before, the football, the relationships, The players are good players — Eden Hazard didn’t forget how to play at 24, none of them did. So Conte came at the right time; the players were ready for the change and wanted the change.
“With a lot of respect to Jose, I didn’t like that the media said he was the king of the world and a genius — he was not, and nor is he as useless as they say about him now . He’s a good coach, with problems like any other person.
“I think Conte started out trying to please the supporters. He played 4-4-2 and he’d never played like this in his life, I’ve followed his whole career. I think the best thing to happen to Chelsea was losing 3-0 to Arsenal, then he came back to his roots and they now play a system that is also good for their players.
“They are doing great and I can only respect Conte. He’s not stubborn like others, and said ‘OK, it’s not going well, let’s change it’. I know the players were not happy at the beginning but this is what leadership is about. He’s doing a really good job and Chelsea are playing very well.”
 
 
Source: ESPNFC.com