"If I wanted an easy job, I would have stayed at Porto – beautiful blue chair, the Champions League trophy, God, and after God, me"

Mourinho July 2004

As manager of Chelsea, Avram Grant has no pedigree. He does, however, have a chum. And as this gentleman also happens to own the wealthiest club in England from the last blade of grass to the washers on the hot taps at the training ground, this is all that matters.

September 20, 2007 is the day that Chelsea stopped being a football club and were reinvented as a rich man’s plaything.

Expert View

As if taking over from one of the most brilliant and successful managers in the game was not tough enough, Grant is also battling against history

Tony Cascarino

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BACKGROUND

• Blue is colour, total chaos the game

• No special side to Grant

• Shoot-out at the Bridge goes to Abramovich

• Grant's job under threat from lack of Uefa licence

BACKGROUND

• Ferguson keeps Chelsea under pressure

• California dreamin’ in bid to lure Mourinho

• Machiavellian manager will not remain on shelf

• Chelsea could become Southern Rock

BACKGROUND

• Ferguson upset by 'relieved' Mourinho's exit

• What did Roman’s magician ever do for us ...?

• How Jose made the game more beautiful

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• Jose Mourinho video highlights

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Make one thing clear: there is nothing in Grant’s professional CV that qualifies him for a job as intricate and demanding as this. He has never managed in a leading European league, never managed a team outside Israel or beyond the most basic qualifying rounds of the Champions League or European Cup (he once reached the first round of the old tournament before being beaten by FC Bruges, and was embarrassingly thrown out at the second qualifying stage during his sole Champions League campaign for fielding a suspended player against FC Haka, of Finland).

He was impressively resilient as manager of Israel, drawing home and away with France, but his football was condemned as conservative and he has not coached at the finals stage of an international tournament.

Grant would not have ticked any of the boxes laid out by Peter Kenyon the last time Chelsea were in the market for a manager. When replacing Claudio Ranieri, the chief executive talked of sustained success and made it clear that extensive experience in Europe was a necessity. After missing out on Sven-Göran Eriksson, he went for a man who had just brought the Champions League title to FC Porto. This time, what little elimination process existed was considerably less exacting.

The bottom line is that Chelsea have gone for a mate of the owner, a member of his entourage, a chap who has had his ear and is widely presumed to have blown smoke in it and up some other places since being taken on as José Mourinho’s shadow in the summer.

What is also at an end is the Chelski myth. If a flag flies over Stamford Bridge this morning, it is not red, but nor is it blue. More than ever, this is now Roman Abramovich’s venture, and his alone. It is as good as impossible to find a single Chelsea supporter who would have backed his choice as manager, and probably not too many on his staff.

To understand Abramovich, it is important to acknowledge that the strongest cultural influence on his life is not his nationality but his faith. In the early days of the Roman invasion, when the owner was a figure of some mystery, it was pointed out to those seeking a handle on the new man that his Jewish heritage was felt more strongly than his Russian roots. It is this that he shares with his inner circle.

Abramovich plays along with the Chelski schtick, but it is not who he is.

Among his most senior advisers is Pini Zahavi, the Israeli-born agent – whose links to Chelsea were illustrated by his presence at the infamous meeting with Ashley Cole, despite not being the representative of the player – and it was Zahavi who introduced Abramovich to Grant.

Abramovich, like Zahavi, is a frequent visitor to Israel, has been present at national team matches and sighted near the dressing-room after matches. He is sponsor of the First Channel Cup, which brings together teams from Israel, Russia and Ukraine, pumping £4 million into the 2007 tournament at a time when Mourinho was denied funds in the transfer window.

Abramovich attended every match bar one and flew in Russian pop stars to provide entertainment at lavish parties. There is no doubt that these ties are strong and, with Abramovich as owner, Grant as manager and Zahavi a trusted confidant of the pair, Chelsea are not so much Russian these days as kosher. Through bonds formed in Israel, Grant was the man Abramovich wanted to work alongside Mourinho and he will find it hard to shake off the image of the dressing-room nark, even if he was in no way to blame for the friction that led to this sudden departure.

There have been suggestions that Mourinho had lost the dressing-room in recent weeks, but those rumours seem too conveniently placed and certainly the most important senior players remained staunchly loyal to their manager. Whatever is said publicly, it is hard to imagine that Grant will be a popular figure when players talk about the events of the past few days. Mourinho is an intensely charismatic man and managers with his strength of personality are the hardest to succeed.

They invariably operate with a handful of trusted lieutenants in the team, who are convinced by the intellect and strategies of the leader and it is difficult to believe that influential figures such as John Terry and Frank Lampard will be easily weaned off the cult of Mourinho. “When José came in, that was it,” Terry told me last season. “He was the one. He gets more out of players than any manager I have ever known. He has a way of making everybody want to play for him – even the guys that are not in the team.”

Now does that sound like a player who will be anything less than suspicious of the new man and his motives?

A clever politician, though, Grant. As Israel coach he wanted to attend the 2004 African Cup of Nations in Tunisia, but the host country did not recognise Israeli passport-holders. So he cut a deal with the Paris correspondent of Yedioth Ahronoth, the daily newspaper, who was known to have good contacts in North Africa. The journalist secured entry, Grant gave him an exclusive interview.

There is a difference, though, between smoothing a path through the relative backwater of Israeli football and pulling off a coup on this audacious scale. Good connections, good fortune and powerful friends in high places will be little help on Sunday at Old Trafford, or at the Mestalla in Valencia, where in two weeks’ time Grant must pick up the pieces of a Champions League campaign that has gone off at halfcock.

Real Madrid are the only team to switch managers midway through the season and win the competition, Vice-nte del Bosque, the youth-team coach, replacing John Toshack in November 1999 and lifting the trophy against Valencia in Paris the next May. Del Bosque, however, had been at the club since 1964 and won five league titles.

Grant, by contrast, is said to be hugely charming and a smart thinker, but with no reputation beyond Israel, except among friends. That has got him far. But for 90 minutes on Sunday, his wealthy gang will count for nothing. He will need to go at Manchester United with more than a good address book and a ready smile or Abramovich will be throwing his toys from the pram again. This time he will have nobody to blame but himself.