Total contempt for Abramovich, but contempt for the way Chelsea won the Champions League is only slightly less!

No doubt! No argument! Abramovich has made a mockery of football by sacking his FA Cup & Champions League winning coach Roberto Di Matteo & installing Benitez as his 9th coach in 9 years of owning Chelsea FC. (and as widely reported, his 10th coach will be installed next season in his 10th year of ownership)

And yes! Di Matteo deserved better. After all he was & will always be the coach who brought the ultimate european glory to London for the very first time.

But, to be fair to Abramovich, he has spent a staggering one billion pounds in the last nine years in pursuit of winning the Champions League the "Barcelona" way, by playing beautiful football, not the anti football manner which Di Matteo's Chelsea won last year!

Di Matteo after all was almighty lucky to 'just" manage to get over the line by guiding Chelsea through with ugly "anti football" tactics to win the Champions League. The only match in the entire knockout stage that Chelsea played like "Barcelona" was their win vs Napoli at Stamford bridge.

The rest of Di Matteo's games in Europe were totally defensive boring games concurred on shear luck, total defensive play and players' courage rather than clever strategic tactics by Di Matteo.

After all, what are the chances of the trio of Messi, Robben & Schweinstiger missing three consecutive penalties vs Chelsea (or any other team for that matter)? surely the odds must be 1 in a billion!

And so, Abramovich's pursuit of THE coach that can finally deliver him glory AND buy Chelsea lasting credibility continues!

Whether he manage to convince Pep Guardiola to bring his Barcelona way next year is any one's guess, and whether he will give Guardiola or any other coach sufficient time to see out their plans for the team is even more in doubt.

Meanwhile Di Matteo can enjoy his payout & bask on the glory of the fact that record books do not show how major trophies were won!

Lessons from the fourth round of Champions League

The fourth round of the group stage of the 2012-13 Champions league season confirmed the following:

• Champions League is far more exciting and tactically more superior than international football scene
• Real Madrid & Barcelona are not as formidable as last year's season
• Bayern Munich, the unlucky losing finalists of last year's competition have a lot more depth this season & seem to have learnt from their defeats in finals of 2010 & 2012
• Champions Chelsea remain a threat whilst Manchester United will eventually pay for their leaky defence
• The impressive displays of Malaga, Porto, Celtic & Shaktar &  few other teams prove the real romance of the competition is still well & truly alive
• Juventus is on its way back as a European powerhouse whilst Dortmund & Schalke have also impressed
• The usual suspects nevertheless remain the favourites, ie Barcelona, Real Madrid, Chelsea, Bayern & Manchester United
• AC Milan & Manchester City have been the flops so far, but for different reasons: Milan due to lack of money & new players, City due to typical arrogance (or naivety) of English teams which assume doing well in EPL guarantees success in Europe (Just as England National team & they will tell you all about it!)

For the 2nd time in three years, the final will be held at Wembley once again. There's a long way to go to be able to predict the final, including the luck of the draw during the knockout phase.

nevertheless one thing is certain. We are once again in for many exciting encounters & fistfuls of goals in the coming months on the way to the final in May.