Benitez Era Begins With Boos and a Whimper

Chelsea Fans are not impressed with the hiring of Benitez (Guardian UK)

I'm not sure who put the bug in Roman's ear.  You know, the one said "hire Rafa Benitez, he'll get the job done."  Obviously it wasn't the Chelsea fan base as the supporters at Stamford Bridge made their feelings quite well known Sunday during Chelsea's 0-0 draw with Manchester City.  Not only were there signs like the one above, but boos rained down on the pitch during his introduction.  The crowd also began chanting the name of Roberto Di Matteo, the Champion's League winning manager who was sacked last week after Chelsea dropped a 3-0 result at Italian Champs Juventus.  There's only word for the reception Benitez got: ugly.

 

It's also very convenient that "ugly" is also the best word to describe the match itself.   The recap in the AP notes that "neither side really created any attacking chances of note."  It was just dull, drab, and ugly.  It was the kind of 0-0 draw that makes people hate soccer.  Unfortunately, it was also the kind of drab result that characterized Benitez's short stint at the helm of Inter Milan, where the Nerazzurri  nearly fell to the bottom of the Serie A table before Benitez was sacked midseason.  One would think that brief reign of terror in Milan would have a red flag for Chelsea, but apparently not.

So what did Rafa do?  Well, he put Fernando Torres back in the starting XI.  How did that work out? Horribly.  The Spaniard got one decent look in the entire match, and made a total mess of it.  So here we sit, Torres still didn't score and Chelsea dropped more points at home.

Perhaps there are a couple of mitigating factors here.  First off, there are many teams in the EPL that would gladly take a point vs Man City, the reigning Champions.  The clean sheet was also an improvement, as Chelsea were somewhat bleeding goals in Di Matteo's final weeks.  Plus it's tough to expect any manager to come in and make and immediate improvement against a championship side on a few days notice.

Well, to those factors I say: when you fired the guy that won the FA Cup AND the Champions League, you had better realize that the fans pretty much expect your new guy to hit the ground running.  Obviously Benitez did not.

Could the Benitez experiment come off well?  Sure it could, we'll see.  However I think if he or anyone else is expecting Fernando Torres to return to anything close to the form he had before, they're totally insane.  Chelsea need to go out and get the same kind of finisher that they had with Didier Drogba.  Therein lies the heart of their problem.