After an extremely poor showing against Manchester United this past Saturday, Jose Mourinho’s successor is already under fire and in danger of imminent unemployment. Granted that Grant’s position as manager is widely known as having little more than an interim tag, I’m not entirely convinced that he’ll have a job at all in the upcoming weeks. Abramovich will likely remove him from the coaching staff entirely once the seats are warm enough to bring in Guus Hiddink or Marco van Basten.

Though Chelsea have had a great deal of success over the past three years, they haven’t exactly accomplished their feats with much style or flair. In football, the method of victory is often held to be more important than victory itself, as is evident from the extreme popularity of the flashy but often lazy Brazilian National Team. The Italian game is often criticized for being too tactical and methodical, but look at the success it brought during the previous World Cup. Soccer in the United States often suffers from the same criticism, as American players are usually in top physical condition but unable to execute the creativity and finishing ability that the elite teams are able to offer in short bursts.

Mourinho’s system is generally labeled under this defense-first tag as well, but in all likelihood he found a good middle ground. Though Chelsea’s defense has always been the strong point of their game, teams need to score goals to win games, and Chelsea have won games. Throwing an aging Andriy Shevchenko into the attack isn’t going to magically add unnecessary flair to their game. The fact of the matter is that Mourinho had the team playing under a system that worked well for three years. The team got off to a slow start this year, but blaming him for the struggles is not the answer. This search for a new manager is going to yield a second-rate successor, because the best man for the job is still Jose Mourinho.

The latest random rumor to pop up on websites, phone-ins, and (gulp) blogs is that Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho is currently fighting to keep his job. Whether this theory holds any water or not is beyond me, and I’m not going to pretend to have any secret contacts or know any insider information. Visit Eklund on hockeybuzz.com or listen to Fox Football Phone-In if you want to hear fabricated stories.

One thing I do know for sure, Chelsea officials have stated that Roman Abramovich visited the team in the locker room after their loss (source). This is what I heard yesterday on Radio 606 as well; they reported that Abramovich himself stated that he visited the Chelsea locker room after the game. Now today there are a billion reports hyping up the story that Abramovich supposedly dashed out of Villa Park in disgust, a sign that relationships between him and Mourinho are strained yet again.

Last time we had a report of coaching tensions, Fox Soccer reported that the Galaxy’s Frank Yallop had been sacked and was going to be replaced by Jurgen Klinsmann. A day later, Yallop coached the Galaxy in their SuperLiga loss to Mexico’s Pikachu. Three days after that, Yallop led his team to an embarrassing 2-1 choke against Fake Salt Lake. He’s still in charge of the team as you read this, and there are no signs that he’ll be replaced any time soon. All the buzz has died.

The same thing will happen with Chelsea’s Mourinho. Without a doubt, Abramovich and all Chelsea fans are displeased with yesterdays result and will be feeling frustrated and concerned over the next few days. When play resumes after the international break, expect Chelsea to regain their form against Blackburn. If Lampard is back, the match against a struggling Man United should be closely contested. After that, matches with Middlesbrough, Fullham, and Bolton should go the Blues’ way. If Chelsea end up losing or drawing 3 of the next 5, then there will be legitimate cause for concern.

Meanwhile, Chelsea are still tied at the top of the tables, though Arsenal and Liverpool each have a game-in-hand. For all intensive purposes, Chelsea are currently 3 points off the pace. They did not look good without Lampard in there yesterday, but they have enough talent to pick up the slack. Drogba looked like the Drogba of two years ago, with an awful lot of whining and flopping around. He had little support, as Lampard had usually been the player making runs behind Drogba to provide him with a fall-back option. Wright-Phillips kept to the wings for most of the game, and Malouda has been unimpressive so far this season.

Mourinho will be given a few weeks to sort all of these problems out. He won’t be fired anytime before November, regardless of Chelsea’s performances. He is simply too good of a manager to be let go of so quickly… and honestly, who would he be replaced with? Is there really any better option right now?