Roman's Generals

Ability vs Likeability

This season we witnessed how easy it is to judge managers solely on whether you actually like them or not, ignoring attempts at being objective. Both sides of the Rafa argument were guilty of this to an extent, some overestimating his ability due to past allegiances, and some underestimating it because of past rivalries.

I thought, therefore, it would be interesting to have a look at how the last decade of Chelsea managers rate, both on their ability in club management and how much we liked them during their tenure.

On Ability (in descending order)
1. Jose
2. Carlo
=3. Hiddink, Rafa
5. AVB
=6. Ranieri/RDM
8. Scolari



9. Grant

Likeability
1. Carlo/Jose (maybe a bit controversial, I really did love Carlo and I haven't enjoyed supporting Chelsea more than his first season)
2. RDM (CL and the fact we had a legend running things)
3. Hiddink (the team felt in very safe hands when he took over, wished he could have had a longer stint)
4. AVB (liked him and was gutted he wasnt given more of a chance, made stupid errors of judgement though)
5. Ranieri (my 2nd Chelsea manager after i started following properly (c.1999), he was good but not good enough)
6. Rafa (always felt a bad fit, but i did admire his guts to come out and confront those of our fans who were taking it too far)
7. Scolari/Grant (cant be bothered to separate them, both look a bit like toads anyway)

notes: - Likeability is only really based on their time at the Bridge, while ability is based on all their managerial exploits

-Scolari should probably be higher on the ability list as he has won a WC but I really don't rate his skills in Club management outside Brazil

(I wavered over deleting the intro, im not really looking for a full blown Rafa debate tbh)