Jimmy Smith’s year long loan deal to Sheffield Wednesday looks imminent now. Owls Boss Brian Laws, had emphasized last week that he wants to build a side for next season which is ultra fit and high with energy. Well, Jimmy Smith fits the bill perfectly for him. An attacking midfielder by trade, he is young, hungry and full of energy and would be eager to prove a point at Hillsborough which may boost his chances of playing for Chelsea.
Owls had a particularly unimpressive campaign last season where they toyed with relegation and it was only a final day victory at home over Norwich which guaranteed Championship survival. Last season was a long hard one for the players and Owls fans alike especially with the poor performances on the pitch, the financial and boardroom instability and talks of a takeover looming. With the club heavily in debt, they had to sell many of their key players from the 06-07 campaign in which they nearly reached the playoffs. The creative midfield players were missed badly last season and it comes as no surprise that Brian Laws has made signing midfield players his top priority this season. Barry Nicholson(Aberdeen) and James O’Connor(Burnley) are also supposedly close to signing for Wednesday.
Coming back to Jimmy. He has been with the club for a long time now but has only made one appearance for Chelsea which came against Newcastle in ‘05-’06 coming on as a substitute for Ricardo Carvalho. He spent the next season on loan at QPR where he had a brilliant start scoring on his debut against Norwich. He scored some cracking goals from midfield for QPR but eventually the goals dried down. His form dipped and was relegated to the bench but even then he maintained good spirits and kept working hard. Towards the end of the season he again saw some games for QPR and eventually returned back to Chelsea. He gained valuable experience at QPR which certainly helped in his development as a player. He scored a total of 6 goals in 29 games for Rangers which can be seen in the clip below.
The club management thought that he was still not ready for first team action and with already a host of international names manning the Chelsea midfield it was thought that the best for him would be another loan spell. Peter Grant took him on loan to Norwich but he injured himself in a pre-season game which curtailed his development. It wasn’t until late October when he got the chance to make his first appearance for the Canaries. By that time Grant had been sacked and Roeder had taken charge at Carrow Road. He did get to play a few games under Roeder but was preferred mainly on the right hand side of midfield which was not his best position. He didn’t stay at Norwich for much long and returned back to Chelsea in January and spent the rest of the season playing for the reserves. Apart from his usual central midfield role he played a few games in an unaccustomed centerback role and also captained the side on a few occasions.
Back in March, Scunthorpe made an offer to sign Smith on a permanent deal but that was turned down by Smith. With four-five reserve team players released this season I had thought that may be Smith too would get the axe but he didn’t. I can put that down to either of two plausible reasons. The first one is that the club still believes that he can cut it out with Chelsea and intend to give him some more time to prove his worth. Some players make the grade a bit later but that looks unlikely for now in my opinion. The second one which I believe to be the actual case is that the club are putting him in shop window. He still has a year left on his contract with Chelsea and I think that the loan deal to Wednesday would involve an option for a permanent transfer if he impresses enough.
Jimmy Smith was talked of as a player who could be the next Frank Lampard but he hasn’t shown enough till now. However he is a hard working player and one thing in football is that you can never write someone off. He might still make it in the Premier League if not with us then with someone else but that is something to look forward to in the future. For now we can all hope that his loan spell at Hillsborough turns out to be a successful one and may be, just may be that would open a chance for him at Chelsea.
Not many among the Chelsea fans would remember him now as he only made a handful of appearances for the first team during his three year tenure one of which was spent on loan at Preston. Filipe Oliviera came to Chelsea before Jose Mourinho whose arrival led to an influx of a host of Portuguese players. Incidentally he came from Mourinho’s former club Porto where he was a trainee but was sold to Chelsea for a fee reported to be around 500k pounds, the same season in which Jose took charge of the Portuguese Club.
He joined our youth setup in Pre-Roman era and we all know the state of it back then. He made his Chelsea debut against Viking, coming on as a substitute for Zola and later that year against Man City he made his Premier League debut. He never started a full match for Chelsea and mostly came on as a sub in the last minutes of the match. In his last season with Chelsea he was sent on loan at Preston North End where too he found it hard to figure regularly. He came back after the end of his loan spell and made his last appearance in a blue shirt against Newcastle which was the final game of the Premier League winning season.
It was clear that he was never going to make it at Chelsea. Moreover he was already 21 by that time and it was probably the best decision for both parties to part ways and for Oliviera to try his luck at a different club. He was released from his contract subsequently and signed with Maritimo FC. His two year spell at Maritimo ended when he was released from his contract again last season. He was snapped up by Leixoes FC where he spent a year but now he will be playing in Braga’s colours next season. He has been signed up on a two year contract and hopefully it would prove to be a good move for him after being a journeyman all these years.
Incidentally Oliviera got his first footballing education at Braga’s academy before joining the Porto’s youth setup. Braga is also the place where he was born and after moving from pillar to post for the best part of last six years may be a return to home comfort would kickstart his career again. Wishing him well in his new endeavour.
He is clearly very enthused about this opportunity and here is what he had to say (taken from Portugoal.net),
“I have always had a lot of respect for Braga. Naturally I feel privileged to have returned to the house where it all started. Now I just want to help the club,” beamed Oliveira.
“Even at a long distance, I never disconnected myself from the club. Despite being a professional in all the clubs I represented, I never stopped following what happened with Braga. For example, when I was in England, I took advantage of my rest days and attended the inauguration of the Estadio Municipal de Braga (now the Esatdio AXA).”
Two days back Coventry City’s assistant manager Steve Kean was linked with a coaching spot on Luis Felipe Scolari’s team. He gave an official statement to Coventry City’s website yesterday that someone acting on behalf of Scolari had approached him and although he was flattered with the proposal but he is not prepared to leave the job that he and Chris Coleman have started at Coventry.
I am sure a lot of Chelsea fans must be thinking just who is this man and why was he approached? Well, I will try to answer.
Steve Kean didn’t had a distinguished playing career. The Scotsman started off with Celtic and then spent six years with Academica Coimbra, a Portuguese club before finishing his playing career with Reading. He went into coaching after that and was the Academy Director and Reserve Team Coach at Fulham during the days of Jean Tigana, the mercurial Frenchman who got Fulham promoted from the First Division. When Tigana was sacked Chris Coleman, a former Fulham player himself was appointed as a caretaker manager with Kean by his side. He went onto manage Fulham for the next four years. All this time Steve Kean was an integral part of his coaching team and the two shared a very good working relationship. After leaving Fulham, Coleman moved onto Real Socieded in Spain and then to Coventry City in England where he is currently and Steve Kean followed him everywhere. Coleman rates Kean very highly and he leaves most of the coaching stuff for him to take care of, something which he has acknowledged many times. Coleman is a manager who I have always admired especially for his youthful exuberance and tactical astuteness and if he rates Kean highly then surely he is no numpty coach.
The question however is whether he is good enough for Chelsea. It is an important point because here we are dealing with players of much higher standard and it might prove to be a difficult task for a coach who isn’t accustomed to training big players and mind you with big players come big egos. The reason for which he was linked which even he had admitted speaking to Coventry’s website was because of his knowledge of Portuguese. We all know how important it is to communicate effectively with the players and Scolari needs someone to put his ideas across to the players in a coherent manner, for the same reasons Ramos brought Poyet when he took charge of Tottenham. The future of Steve Clarke who would be a great help to Scolari is still uncertain however it is widely believed in most quarters that he would stay with the club to provide continuity.
With Kean refusing the chance to take up a coaching position at Chelsea it remains to be seen if a similar appointment would be made in the coming weeks. I can understand the need for it but I don’t think it is so important. Having listened to one of Scolari’s interviews in english I believe communicating with players is not going to be a big problem for him. He can always brush up his english or maybe Clarke can learn a few words in Portuguese. How is ‘Joga Bonito’ for a start?
The news couldn’t have come at a worse time for Khalid Boulahrouz who was having an excellent Euro so far. The death of his prematurely born daughter Anissa must have been too hard on him. He had left the Dutch training camp on Wednesday after his wife was hospitalised with some pregnancy complications. She had to undergo labour and gave birth to a girl who was named Anissa. It was a premature delivery, only after 22 weeks and the little girl couldn’t survive.
Initially it was thought that Boulahrouz wouldn’t feature in Holland’s game against Russia which will take place on Saturday but he has reported back to the training camp and it looks likely now that he would feature for Van Basten’s team. He is a brave man indeed because there are times like these which puts everything in perspective. Playing for his country is a matter of pride for any footballer and if Khalid is ready to put his personal loss behind and step onto the pitch in an orange kit then it is a very brave of the man.
My thoughts go with Khalid and his family at this moment of grief and I hope time would ease off their pain. Incidentally Khalid married his girlfried Sabia during his first year with Chelsea in December,2006. He would have never known that a year and half down the line he had to go through such contrasting emotions.
Every good thing in this world comes to an end but there are some things you want to hold onto for as long as you can. For me watching Makelele battling against the teams on the international arena was one of them. The man who gave his name to a position on the football pitch surely was no mere mortal and must be given the respect and recognition he deserves.
‘The Makelele role’ as the holding midfield position began to be called in honour of the great man who with his trademarks interceptions, tackles, body movements and short passes made it his own for a decade playing for the French team and clubs such as Nantes, Marsielle, Celta Vigo, Real Madrid and Chelsea. The legacy of Makelele will live on in the international arena but one could sense that it won’t be long before he retires from the club football. We the Chelsea fans would miss him a lot because he has been an integral part of what has been christened as ‘The Blue Revolution’.
Tonight after France failed to qualify for the quarterfinals of the European Championsips losing 2-0 to Italy, Claude Makelele came out and announced his retirement from the international scene. It was expected that he would retire after the tournament but I had never thought it would come so soon. I was hoping for France to go all the way so that we can get to savour the game of the great man for some time more however it wasn’t to be. Watching the France-Italy game I never realized that it was going to be Makelele’s swansong and only after the game had finished and the French camp had gone into mourning it occurred to me that the footballing world is losing one of its great players. France going out of the competition which was no less of a shock paled in comparison.
It was ironic that a player of his ability couldn’t win a major trophy with his country. He came close though in the last world cup when France lost to Italy on penalties which was probably his best chance to win something. He deserved more, much more. It didn’t really mattered to Maka however. To him playing for his country was as big a honour he could ever get. After the game he came out and said,
“To have been allowed to wear France’s colours, that’s my trophy”
He was a great professional, a player with exceptional qualities, someone to look upto on the football pitch and a man whose humility and down to earth nature were some of the rare qualities which separated him from the footballers of today. Makelele might stick around for a few more years playing at club level but certainly a chapter has closed today and the footballing world would no longer get to see the Makelele himself in the ‘Makelele’ role. His legacy would live on though and the coming generation would look upto him in awe and say here was the man who taught the world how to play the ‘Makelele’ role.
It’s been two years since Ben Sahar made the move from Hapoel Tel Aviv to Chelsea and it would be fair to say that in these two years he has made considerable progress perhaps not so much on the club level but certainly he has made giant strides on the international scene. His goal sent Israel’s U21 team to their first ever European Championships and then became the youngest player to play for the Israel’s senior team and in the process also becoming the nation’s youngest goal scorer.
Inspite of making a significant progress at the International Level it hasn’t exactly translated well at club level. It is always difficult for a youngster at a club like Chelsea to make claims for a first team spot so early and so was the case with Sahar. He impressed at the U18 and the Reserve levels during the first year of his spell at Chelsea and it all looked so promising. A loan spell looked on cards to and with that in mind the club loaned him at the start of last season to Queens Park Rangers. One of the reasons for loaning him to QPR was the excellent relationship developed between the two clubs especially with the successful loan spells of Michael Mancienne and Jimmy Smith. However his loan spell didn’t turned out as per plan inspite of impressing with his double strike against Fulham during pre-season. There were a lot of factors that worked against him, not the least of them were the sacking of John Gregory the then QPR manager and his appendix operation which kept him out of action for considerable time. The club was having a hard time in a relegation struggle and the new management were not so keen on him. There were one or two questions raised about his attitude and the excessive intervention of his mother in his playing career. During this time he also changed his agent from Pini Zihavi to an English one.
Sahar returned back to Chelsea and got some game time in the reserves to regain his confidence and also to get some matches under his belt. He didn’t had to wait too long though in the reserves as the Owls boss Brian Laws came calling and was quiet interested in taking him on loan. Sahar too was enthusiastic about this opportunity and agreed to go on loan to Hilllsborough for a month long deal intially which was later extended twice to last till the end of the season. He scored three goals during his times there, some really important ones as Wednesday were right in the mire till the very last day and the Owls fans were really appreciative of his effort and commitment inspite only being there on loan.
One of the things that Sahar himself had mentioned during his times at QPR was the lack of service from the midfield. Anybody who has seen the level of football at Championship knows that more often than not the teams prefer route one football and it was Sahar’s bad luck that he happened to be at teams without any creative players in midfield. QPR were having a hard time financially before the arrival of billionaire magnates and had to sell their most creative player Lee Cook to Fulham last season. The same was the issue with Sheffield Wednesday who too were having a hard time with the club heavily in debt which forced the sales of players like Brunt and Whelan to West Brom and Stoke. Sahar was always one step ahead of the midfielders at the clubs who couldn’t pick up his intelligent runs behind the defence and instead of getting incisive passes he was chasing the long balls the length and breadth of the pitch. However the two loan spells would have been a good learning experience for him which would go a long way in helping him to grow both professionally and personally.
He is unlikely to figure next season for Chelsea as currently a season long loan deal is being discussed with two clubs namely Porsmouth FC and NEC Nijmegen of Holland. It remains to be seen where he would chose to go but he would have the best wishes of all Chelsea supporters who really want to see a player from the youth setup making the stepup to the first team.
Sahar is a player who believes in his own ability and is not the one to buckle down. After his unsuccessful loan spell at QPR he gave an interview to Haaretz.com an Israeli Daily and there were two comments that struck me.
“Ben Sahar is not going to disappear and no one should worry his career will be wasted. I know what I am worth and have no doubt it is on the way. I already showed results and will bring more in the future.”
“I was in the limelight and expectations were sky high,” Sahar said candidly. “It’s tough on a 17-year-old. At times the media crossed the lines and turned me into a star in seconds. That pressure rubs off on you. I went to a psychologist to help me a number of times. I sought guidance and tools to deal with what I was experiencing. Not that I was a crybaby, not at all.
“On the other hand, this process matured me and strengthened me. I know many players would give up everything to swap with me. And I have given everything. I have given up on many things for my career, but I don’t regret for a single moment having come to England.”
He knows living the tag of a superstar which he is regarded as back in Israel is not easy but if he keeps his head down and keeps working hard there is no way he cannot cut it at the top level of professional football.
People who know me know that I am one of laziest beings around this planet but I love Chelsea with a passion. Never felt so strongly for anything in my life. It’s all I think about, it’s all I talk about, it’s all I read about and it’s all I write about. Day begins and ends with Chelsea for me.
I had given an earlier shot at blogging but couldn’t keep myself upto it. However I am thinking of giving another shot and with that in mind have created this wordpress account and hoping to pen down a few thoughts every now and then.
Jimmy Smith’s year long loan deal to Sheffield Wednesday looks imminent now. Owls Boss Brian Laws, had emphasized last week that he wants to build a side for next season which is ultra fit and high with energy. Well, Jimmy Smith fits the bill perfectly for him. An attacking midfielder by trade, he is young, hungry and full of energy and would be eager to prove a point at Hillsborough which may boost his chances of playing for Chelsea.
Posted by Yasser 
Posted by Yasser 
Posted by Yasser 
