http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/sunsport_columnists/article731910.eceROMAN ABRAMOVICH and Peter Kenyon must be laughing themselves sick.
Unlike Ashley Cole.
The Chelsea hierarchy came in for a right duffing — not least in these columns — when they off-loaded Jose Mourinho and brought in Avram Grant.
The man formerly known as ‘Avram Who’.
Yet they have picked up in the league, are back in the Carling Cup final and had little problem removing Wigan from the FA Cup on Saturday.
At a time when they were expected to suffer the fall-out from losing four top players to the African Nations Cup, they have gone from strength to strength. Joe Cole, in particular, is revelling in all the responsibility.
They have even been able to do it without John Terry, Frank Lampard AND Michael Ballack — now carrying a calf strain.
Mind you, it always helps when you enter the transfer window and can summon up Nicolas Anelka, Serbian Under-21 skipper Branislav Ivanovic and striker Franco di Santo, the latest in a long line of Argentine wonderboys.
Another £26million of talent. Just like that.
It is almost as if it’s Grant’s reward for not rocking the boat.
What a change from this time last year when the Mourinho-Abramovich relationship was going into meltdown.
Now the Russian owner has a manager he trusts, a manager more than happy to follow directives from above and a manager with no intention of rocking the boat.
Now it’s Jose Who.
Strangely, all the injuries and absentees have probably helped Grant. The team more or less picks itself.
What happens when the African mob return and the lame pick up their beds and walk, is a different matter.
Only then will we be able to see what Grant is really made of. Never can a Premier League boss have been blessed with a squad packed with such midfield expertise and experience.
What a choice — four from Lampard, Ballack, Cole, Michael Essien, Mikel Jon Obi, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Florent Malouda and Claude Makelele.
But what a balancing act, keeping all those egos happy. That is when Grant will have to call on all his wisdom and avuncular charm.
If that has the manager scratching his head, the potential of an Anelka-Didier Drogba attacking partnership will have Chelsea fans in a state of hyperventilation.
Considered by some as too similar — though not nearly as much so as Anelka and Thierry Henry for France — it is more likely to be the strike pairing Chelsea have long been searching for.
With Drogba not having to carry the team in attack, it is the difference between a Champions League semi-final and winning the European Cup.
Again, two huge personalities, both with immense self-belief.
Anelka, though, is an extremely clever footballer, a player who has arrived at a stage of his career
where he knows exactly what he has to do to make the Drogba partnership work.
If this means adapting his game to dovetail with the Ivorian, he will do it.
Unlike Andriy Shevchenko, who appears to have found the role beyond and beneath him.
So, very interesting times once more at Stamford Bridge. And in the Premier League.
Manchester United and Arsenal will both be looking over their shoulders as the big blue machine continues to work up a head of steam.
Should the Chelsea Academy, currently under construction at Chelsea’s Cobham training ground, eventually start spewing home-grown talent it won’t bear thinking about.
Nor will the look on Kenyon’s face. Please, someone stop it.
