Open Goal Magazine

DOUBLE DUTCH DISASTER AT CHELSEA...
TUESDAY 22nd JULY 2008

Must be great having money to splash around on a hunch.

Mourinho may have been the special one for the most part, but he had a few hunches that didn't quite come off along the way. The likes of Shevchenko and Wright-Phillips were big money faux pass who might still have the chance to redeem themselves, but when you look at the likes of Mateja Kezman and Khalid Boulahrouz, you do wonder if Jose and big Pete Kenyon had spent a few too many nights down Boujis on strong cocktails.

Kezman is long departed and has continued a consistent slide towards oblivion (last seen signing autographs at Fenerbahce), while Boulah only yesterday confirmed his departure from the Bridge in a rumoured £4million switch to German side Stuttgart.

I remember watching Boulahrouz on a couple of occasions in his first season at the club in 2006/07, and he always struck me as a big old lump of meat, capable of doing a job, but similarly capable of playing like a ... well, like a big of lump of meat, I suppose.

Long before he saw red at the Emirates back in May last year, his one-way 'we'll call you' loan ticket had been stamped, and he enjoyed a rather more successful season with Sevilla before starring for Holland at Euro 2008.

But the point of Khalid's story is a reflection not so much on Chelsea, but on modern football itself. A mistake signing, yes; the wrong type of player, probably, but an abject failure to the extent that he may be remembered only for being woeful - no. And the reason why not, is that the guy only started 10 games for the club, and in half of those he failed to make it through to the 90th minute, so you're looking at (including FA and Carling Cup matches) somewhere around 15 hours worth of competitive football, under three different managers.

It's astounding that clubs are willing to draw lines under players so quickly, even if that means writing off a £3million transfer price loss, not to mention a huge outlay on wages. Chelsea may do this to extremes - they have every right to - but the same pattern is repeated all the way around world football, from Barcelona to Barnsley, Milan to Macclesfield.

Has the game really abandoned the concept of investing in players, and following whatever inspired thinking leads clubs to sign the David Nugents of this world in the first place?

Still, I suppose, looking at the positives, Boulahrouz still did a lot more than his Dutch compatriot Winston Bogarde (who clocked up a collosal two league starts in four years at Chelsea), and cost a good deal less than £50,000 a week too.

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