In his first interview, Eugene Tenenbaum, the billionaire’s closest aide at Chelsea, tells The Times that Abramovich has been surprised by the level of hype surrounding his arrival and that he is intent on running the club along sensible business lines. He adds that the Russian has a strong emotional attachment to Chelsea and that Ranieri was removed from his post because the owner felt the Italian was not up to the task of building a team combining young English talent and top-notch foreign signings that would win the Premiership.

“Claudio had more of an Italian approach, where the first team is the first team and the reserve and the academy teams are separate,” Tenenbaum, a Chelsea director, said. Mourinho made it clear in a press conference on Monday that his philosophy was in line with Abramovich’s vision: an holistic style where the head coach is closely involved in all three areas.

“Roman took a decision that the club has to take a co-ordinated approach where you build the players,” Tenenbaum said. “It’s a balance between home-grown players and acquisitions. Acquiring players, you can’t make it a going concern. You have to be the same as the English clubs to attract English talent. Claudio — it wasn’t his experience. He couldn’t do it. Roman didn’t think so. It wasn’t: ‘I don’t like him.’ It was a very careful thought process. It really was a difficult decision: what’s best for a growing concern for results?”

Although Ranieri believed that his sacking was ordained early in the season, Tenenbaum insists that it arose from a long, careful review of Chelsea’s future. “The Ranieri situation was really fuelled by people around him, the negative side of it. He felt a decision was made, people around him did, but it wasn’t,” he said.

A repeat of last season’s second-place finish in the Premiership will be deemed failure and the only acceptable return for Abramovich’s investment is silverware.

“People talk about the second place,” Tenenbaum said. “The whole idea is to win, not to get to second place. That was really the bottom line. It was what had to happen at the club to win.”

Hence Abramovich chose Mourinho, 41, who won the European Cup this year with FC Porto. “José has the experience. He was winning. Roman wanted to bring in young people, young talent, young methods.”

Tenenbaum’s hard-man reputation was sealed when it emerged that he told Ranieri he had lost his job on May 31 in a telephone call to Italy, rather than straight to his face. “He couldn’t come on Monday,” Tenenbaum said. “He had to be in Italy. We had to make a decision on Monday because we were close with José Mourinho. It would have looked terrible if José came in on the Tuesday morning and we didn’t make it official that Claudio was no longer our coach.”

Although first a businessman, Abramovich, who rose to be the world’s 25th-richest man by the age of 37, is now sentimentally attached to Chelsea. “He loves coming to London,” Tenenbaum said. “He loves the fact that kids say, ‘Roman, you are the best, thanks for buying Chelsea’.

“He went to Portugal to this little isolated island somewhere in the south. There was a kid there with a Chelsea shirt. He’s absolutely thrilled it’s Chelsea that he bought. I was sitting with him in Portugal when they got the fixtures for next season. He was like a kid in a candy store. He couldn’t wait till August 15 to play Manchester United.”

As the richest man in football, Abramovich has a tough time convincing footballers that he will not pay the earth to get them into a Chelsea shirt. Peter Kenyon, the chief executive recruited from Manchester United, has the job of poking the pound signs out of players’ eyes.

“It’s hard to fight this. People see you as a completely irrational money source,” Tenenbaum said. “Even when you are negotiating with clubs and players, it’s very difficult. They think they can get away with a much higher fee than is market-driven.”

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