Devastated RDM has been sacked although I'm not surprised. The fact is he was never Roman's man and people expected him to fail, he exceeded all expectations and the board knew they couldn't sack him yet. Rumours are that as soon as we lost in Donetsk options were already being weighed up. For many years I could never understand why Chelsea were so hated amongst football fans but being honest if I didn't support Chelsea I'd probably hate us too. CPofL was right on this thread (in a way). Roman has done everything for us, we saved us from what would have been certain administration and probable liquidation, built a successful team and has won us so much. The reason we can chant stuff like "Champions of Europe" "Have you ever seen Tottenham Win the League?" "8 Years and you've won **** all" etc is because of him. I trust Roman 100% (I don't trust the people around him but that's another matter), he's not become a multi-billionaire by being stupid. He wants the best for this club, the fact he deems 2nd or 3rd as failure in a way is admirable. As a result of that though we have to realise the days of Chelsea FC being a club of morals and principles are long gone. We've gone from the Man City (pre-2006) end of the spectrum to the Man Utd end of the spectrum. We can't have our cake and eat it, we can't have the best team in the world, play exciting football, be liked and have morals/principles. It's either or. But I hope people don't buy into the anti-Abramovich BS and just remember where we were at 10 years ago and where we are now. The fact is Bates was proven to be just as ruthless and trigger-happy. I still rate the sacking of Ruud Gullit as the most ridiculous I've seen. Bates saw off Matthew Harding, Ruud Gullit, Gianluca Vialli and had he had the money Claudio Ranieri would have been long gone before RA even got chance to set on eyes on him. Chelsea are scapegoated (rightly) for managerial merry-go-rounds but with our wage bill and spend comes high expectations. Managers at Championship clubs (and even Prem) have been sacked for far less. RDM himself knows this at WBA. Very disappointed to see RDM go though, he deserves better than this club, as have so many others. Us fans are just a glotten for punishment though, football must be the only sport that commands this much loyalty.
