Many would consider Champions League qualification and a European final a successful season, but this wasn’t enough to keep Avram Grant in a job.
The former Chelsea manager was brutally given his marching orders by Roman Abramovich in 2008, despite guiding the club to a second-place Premier League finish and two major finals in one season.
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Cut to the present day, and current Blues boss Enzo Maresca finds himself in a strong position after guiding his side to Conference League success – off the back of securing fourth place on Sunday.
A 1-0 win over Nottingham Forest saw the west Londoners seal a return to Europe’s elite competition for the first time in three years.
Chelsea then came from behind to smash Real Betis 4-1 to become the first club to win all four major UEFA trophies, allowing them to end their season on a high after a mixed campaign.
Despite a strong start this term that left them second in the Premier League at Christmas, a loss of form at the start of the year saw the Blues tail off, with Maresca coming under fire as a result.
However, while the Italian has now silenced his critics further with trophy success, he will know just how high the bar is to remain in the job.
That is especially so if he is familiar with Grant’s fortunes at Stamford Bridge, who was dismissed after comfortably securing Champions League football for his side.
The odds were arguably stacked against the Israeli coach from the start, after he was chosen as the man to succeed the legendary Jose Mourinho following his departure in September 2007.
Having previously been the club’s Director of Football, the internal promotion proved unpopular with supporters, who deemed him under-qualified due to his lack of managerial experience in Europe prior to this.
Despite this, Grant managed to prove his doubters wrong, taking the Blues on a 16-game unbeaten run from September until December.
This was enough to earn the now 70-year-old a new four-year contract, solidifying his position in charge.
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But even though another 16-game streak without defeat would follow soon after, the big moments proved to be Grant’s undoing.
The Blues suffered disappointment in both the FA Cup and League Cup, trophies they had won the season before under Mourinho.
They lost to Barnsley in the FA Cup sixth round and were beaten by Tottenham in the League Cup final in a game where they took the lead.
Grant’s side also fell short in the Premier League, missing out on the title on the final day, with Manchester United holding off their late challenge to win by two points.
All of this would surely have been forgotten had Chelsea clinched European glory, having reached their first-ever Champions League final under Grant’s leadership.
But there was to be further heartbreak for the Londoners, who again lost out to Man United in a devastating penalty shoot-out.
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The decisive moment saw John Terry slip as he took what would have been the winning penalty, and the ball cannoned off the post.
Having come off second best on three separate occasions that season, this wasn’t deemed good enough by owner Abramovich, who dismissed Grant just three days after their European final.
To many, this would have seemed a harsh decision, with the ex-West Ham boss boasting a 66.7 per cent win record during his time in charge, while also never losing a home game.
But Grant clearly did not do enough to impress the club’s ownership, otherwise, who later revealed he was offered the chance to return to his old job as Director of Football, but turned it down.
The current Zambia manager said at the time: “I understand the offer and why it was made but I thought that, from my point of view, it was not the correct move.
“I saw that it was not a good move for me at this stage.”
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Grant would later take charge of both Portsmouth and West Ham over the next two years, suffering back-to-back relegations from the Premier League with both sides in 2010 and 2011, respectively.
And despite his harsh dismissal, he later reflected fondly on his eight-month spell in charge at Stamford Bridge.
He told The Sun in 2020: “Reading my notes back made me proud of everything. You see only the result and the result was clear.
“But I consider more what brought us there. The training, the mentality, everything. No doubt, it was a great season.
“Before I joined, everybody spoke about Chelsea’s ugly football. After one month, nobody mentioned it. If you look back, it was maybe their best football.”
