Former Chelsea manager Andre Villas-Boas has revealed that Chelsea’s failure to sign either Like Modric or Joao Moutinho did not go well with Chelsea’s formal owner Roman Abramovich.
According to Andre Villas-Boas, Chelsea had identified Croatian captain Luka Modrić as their number midfield target for that summer, with Joao Moutinho as the alternative if they cannot sign former Tottenham midfielder.
Chelsea could not Modric from Tottenham and he later joined Real Madrid in the same summer. Like Modric since joining Real Madrid had become one of the best midfielders in football history, winning five Champions League and the Ballon d’or in 2018.
However, Andre Villas-Boas believes Chelsea would have performed better than a season if they had signed Modric. Villas-Boas was sacked as Chelsea manager after eight months in charge.
What did Andre Villas-Boas say about Chelsea’s pursuit of Luka Modric?
The former Marseille manager said in an interview with Telegraph: “Of course, we missed the [Luka] Modric deal at the beginning of the season.
“If the Modric deal was not to be done, there was the [Joao] Moutinho deal to be done. That was the promise of a Roman at that time.
“Moutinho joined the Premier League years and years after I tried—proposing to both Chelsea and Tottenham—and everybody has seen the player that he is.
“So that denial of him was a failure that you can’t [blame on] a coach. I thought that we had the Modric deal done, and he ended up in Real Madrid the season after. Then the Moutinho deal was to be done with Porto, but the problem was the deal [for Chelsea] for the left-back of Porto, Alvaro Pereira, fell through.
“Roman felt p****d off. So, no Modric, no Moutinho, [Radamel] Falcao is another one that was about to come in, but then you had [Didier] Drogba who couldn’t decide whether he wanted to leave or not in January. He was about to go to Shanghai, then he isn’t anymore and then Marina [Granovskaia] she wanted Carlos Tevez and suddenly she doesn’t want Tevez anymore.
“So, you know, managements and mismanagements that are typical within that organization.
“But Marina evolved to one of the greatest CEOs at that time [at Chelsea]. I am nothing compared to what she has achieved. There are a lot of things about that season that deserve one of those shocking autobiographies in England that reaches number one in WH Smith!”
He also added that there have been so many lies leveled against time during his time at Chelsea.
“Why do you start this conversation with—what happened at Chelsea and ‘why don’t you like England’?
“Instead of, ‘Oh, this went so well for you in Porto and went so well for you in Russia [at Zenit St Petersburg] and you finished second [in the French league] in Marseille, how was that?’
“And I tell you why—because I have no problem speaking about my failures. People [say] to me: ‘Oh, he was a stupid boy who went into management and it didn’t go well at Chelsea because he was too stubborn, too blah, blah, blah, and then the release clause and he got his £10 million, his £15 million’.
“There are so many lies that are present in this game that people want to relate to me… I am curious and I investigate and I dwell in detail and I read and I prepare. But sometimes things go well, sometimes not well. How many coaches have been fired by Chelsea?”
