4:04pm Tuesday 8th April 2008
By Kevin Affleck
Avram Grant goes into tonight's Champions League quarter-final with Fenerbahce in a no-win situation.
Overturn a 2-1 deficit from the first leg and progress through to the semi-final - a stage Jose Mourinho twice failed to take Chelsea beyond - and he will be accused of being a flat-track bully.
Lose and Grant's job will, according to the so-called experts, be hanging by a thread. He can look forward to a whole host of abuse and vilification in the morning from the national press who are desperate for the Israeli to fail and fulfil their view that he was not fit to fill the expensive overcoat won by Mourinho.
They made their feelings known on his appointment from day one when Grant was unveiled at a ferocious press conference in September.
The Israeli has been able to do little right since replacing Mourinho, the headline-grabbing Portuguese alchemist.
When Grant does mastermind a victory over one of the elite - Valencia away or Arsenal at home - it is attributed to the quality of players he has at his disposal.
On the rare occasion Chelsea do lose - Manchester United away, Barnsley away and against Tottenham in the Carling Cup Final - he is labelled as out of his depth and tactically flawed.
It has even been ludicrously suggested that Chelsea's quest for Premier League and Champions League glory is being driven by the decorated and strong-willed players in the dressing room. Nonsense.
If so, where were they were Chelsea were knocked out by Barnsley? Or was that defeat, by a team who had also knocked Liverpool out, all Grant's fault?
How often have teams brimming with galacticos been able to function by themselves and without a figurehead?
A Real Madrid side, dripping with the likes of Raul, Zidane, Figo, Ronaldo and Carlos, crashed out of the Champions League in 2004, while Sven Goran Eriksson and Steve McClaren have failed miserably in their attempt to make the whole greater than the sum of its parts with England.
Grant deserves respect and better credit for the job he has performed since taking over at Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea have lost just two of 27 league games since he took charge, playing with something of a swagger in overhauling Liverpool and Arsenal, and emerging as the genuine contender to Manchester United for the title.
In fact Blues fans could well look back ruefully at the end of the season and wonder what might have been had Chelsea not dropped seven points during the first six games of the season under Mourinho.
Grant has picked some of the best brains in world football (Bob Paisley and Brain Clough) since he first became a coach at the age of 19 and has an encyclopedic knowledge on the game.
He may not have the charisma, humour or presence of a Mourinho, but eyebrows were raised when Arsenal plumped for Arsene Wenger and when AC Milan lured Arrigo Sacchi (the double European Cup winning coach) from Parma in 1997. They didn't do a bad job, did they?
Changing subject it was a privilege to be at a jumping Vicarage Road on Sunday to watch Saracens topple Ospreys in truly uplfiting fashion.
Few gave Sarries a prayer after they were thumped two weeks ago by the same opposition, but the Men in Black turned the tables with a memorable display, brimming with grit, gumption and a never-say-die sprit.
And they did it without Chris Jack, their key second row, Andy Farrell, Paul Gustard and South African speedster Brent Russell who all limped off injured, and ended the match with Neil de Kock, their scrum-half, playing on the wing.
And at the heart of this remarkable effort? Richard Hill, a true great of the game who has battled back from two cruciate ligament injuries on the same knee within the space of a year.
With the ligament of a dead man grafted onto his knee and unable to walk without a limp, Hill produced one of the best individual performances I have seen in any sport.
The likable and popular Hill will draw the curtain down on his illustrious career at the end of the season but that display will live long in the memory.
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