Ken Barkway discusses the curious case of Emenalo.
So he’s off. Much to the jubilation of many of our social media using fan base. A curious shadowy figure, he’s been a virtual Eminence Grise since he arrived at the along with Avram Grant, yet ten years later he’s a rarity, appearing to leave the club entirely of his own accord.
But what do we really know about Mr Emenalo? His achievements and what he was actually responsible for? Neither us the humble match going fans nor the press seems to know exactly what he did good or bad.
From the fans’ perspective, he was the under 13 girls coach risibly promoted to assist Carlo Ancelotti as a first-team coach when Ray Wilkins was bounced out of Cobham in 2010. Farcically he wasn’t qualified enough to be permitted a spot on the match day bench at Carlo’s elbow. He has recently, finally earned his UEFA Pro licence and can sit on a bench.
He further irritated the fans as the man who coldly referred to Jose Mourinho as “the individual”, whatever forlorn, grey figure he might cut at Manchester now, Jose remains the clubs’ most successful manager and the man who in no small part laid the foundations for a decade of glory. In fans’ eyes, he was entitled to more respect and courtesy that to be referred to with such apparent aloofness.
To survive the frequent bouts of turmoil he undoubtedly had the ear of Abramovich which led to him being perceived by many as a brown-nosing, spy in the camp who was only adept at the fine art of self-promotion.
The press, however, including Emenalo’s man in the press Matt Law have gone with the narrative that his departure is a “massive blow” to Chelsea and Abramovich. Abramovich maybe – but the club? Doubtful. He is being credited with being at the heart of all that the club has achieved since 2007. Which is patently wrong; until 2012, that team remained built around the nucleus of the squads constructed initially by Ranieri and further augmented by Mourinho.
What is incontrovertible is that he has seen off ten managers in his time. His precise involvement in those decisions will never be known, but he has remained in the role through the clubs’ many and frequent “basket case” phases which further aroused suspicion.
So where does his departure leave us?
I suspect that the truth lies somewhere in between; he’s neither quite the hero nor the villain he has been portrayed as, but a bloke who managed to do a bit of a job for himself. The man is no fool; he’s educated and eloquent. The position he never held really appeared to be an orthodox Director of Football – that seems to be almost shared between himself and Marina Granovskaia- it appeared that he sat over the scouting structure and had some responsibility for the all-conquering academy. Again though we’ve benefitted from an excellent cadre of coaches and network of youth scouts, many of whom were already in place somewhere in the organisation before his reign. Ms Granovskia seems to be trusted with the deal-making side of the role, possesses a formidable reputation and has been very close to Abramovich a long time before the Director of Football role was ever created.
I think it is also abundantly clear that he or the club did possess a good contact in Belgium – the club has had an option or bought pretty much every good player to have come through the little country’s remarkable recent conveyor belt of talent.
Which leads to the greyest of grey areas and perhaps the area where he attracts most vilification. The endless cycle of scouting talent, procuring talent, loaning it out and then selling on, occasionally directly to competitors. We’ll never know where the responsibility rests for some of the frankly bizarre personnel decisions made in recent years – but he’ll always be held partly responsible in most people’s eyes.
In short; he came, created a job for himself then left. I don’t think he’ll be terribly missed. Perhaps now the managers will finally be restored the authority for first-team matters for which they hold the responsibility. Hopefully, it will mean that Antonio will stay for a while – there’s a young squad out there with great potential. Let’s build a dynasty.
Written by Ken Barkway – Follow him on Twitter @KenBarkway
