Chelsea sack Scolari !
Feb 9th, 2009 • Coaches • Teams • Transactions
Luis Felipe Scolari, the Brazilian manager who joined Chelsea June of 2008 has been sacked by Chelsea in order “to maintain a challenge for the trophies we are still competing for”. This season Chelsea have lost 16 potential points at home and are currently in 4th place in the League. They are still in the running for the Champions League and FA Cup; Ray Wilkins will be in charge until a new manager is appointed.
“Luiz Felipe Scolari has been dismissed as manager of Chelsea Football Club with immediate effect. The Chelsea board would like to place on record our gratitude for his time as manager. Felipe has brought many positives to the club since he joined and we all feel a sense of sadness that our relationship has ended so soon. Unfortunately the results and performances of the team appeared to be deteriorating at a key time in the season. In order to maintain a challenge for the trophies we are still competing for we felt the only option was to make the change now. The search for a new manager has already started and we hope to have someone in place as soon as possible”
60 year old Scolari managed Brazil to the World Cup in 2002, led Portugal to the Euro Final in 2004 and semi-finals of the World Cup in 2006. While the season started off well for him, Chelsea’s form became worse and out of 36 games in charge 20 were won, 11 drawn and 5 lost. Their record against the other members of the Big Four is poor having lost 2-1 against Liverpool twice, 2-1 against Arsenal at home, tied Manchester United 1-1 at home and lost 3-0 while away.
Chelsea winger Pat Nevin responded to questions about Scolaris departure:
“Scolari’s popularity has been plummeting in the past few weeks. The question is, who is going to be able to do it with a squad that is clearly not strong enough? This is a club that a year ago was one of the biggest in the world and quite clearly it seems to have gone downhill quite quickly. I hope for Chelsea’s sake they don’t have a knee-jerk reaction and dive for the first name that comes into their mind. They need to give it an awful lot of thought and maybe consider someone that isn’t the biggest name in the world.”
