Commitment: My Autobiography by Didier Drogba

Author:Didier Drogba [Drogba, Didier]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 2015-11-05T05:00:00+00:00

13

AVB AND RDM, 2011–2012

IN June, our new manager was announced – André Villas-Boas, or AVB as the British media soon called him. He was my sixth manager since joining the club seven years before. In the four years since José Mourinho had left, in September 2007, this was our fifth manager. I had heard rumours before the end of the previous season that they were hoping to appoint André and I was really happy when his arrival was confirmed because I knew him well and considered him a friend. We went back a long way. When I was at Marseille, he was one of José Mourinho’s assistants at Porto and often came to watch me play and then reported back to José on my performance. He followed José to Chelsea, then Inter Milan, and we had stayed in touch all this time by text message, which was nice for me. As a manager in his own right the previous season at Porto, he had achieved amazing results – the team had won the Portuguese Premier League undefeated, with a twenty-point margin, and the UEFA Europa Cup. This made him the youngest-ever manager, at 33 years of age, to win a European competition.

So he certainly came to Chelsea with all the right credentials, and I was full of hope that he would be a great manager for us. I wasn’t worried that a friend was now going to be deciding whether I played or not. For me, if the friendship is real, we should be able to separate the personal from the professional. He should be able to be honest and straight. If he does not pick me, he should be able to say, ‘OK, I’m not picking you because the other guy is better, or because I want to play a different system,’ and even if I get upset, I should be able to accept that it’s simply a professional decision, delivered clearly. For me, it should be a simple situation, so I was not worried.

When he arrived, he appointed Roberto Di Matteo as assistant manager, so Roberto was returning to the club he had played for as a midfielder for six years. André’s training methods were exactly the same as José’s, which we were very happy about. For those of us who went back to those days, it was a return to what we knew. However, we also learned unofficially that he wanted to get rid of a few people whom he regarded as ageing players, such as Frank Lampard and Ashley Cole – and me. That’s his right, because the club needed to keep moving forwards, but he shouldn’t have kept those players at the club while he was trying to make his revolution. Although we weren’t going around complaining, it had an impact on the rest of the squad if we weren’t happy.

It was the last year of my contract at the club, whereas André had signed a three-year deal, so I think he felt in a

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