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Grant brushes up for Greek exam
04/03/2008 08:04 - (SA)
London - Avram Grant has friends in high places at Chelsea but even that won't stop him feeling the heat if his team are knocked out of the Champions League by Olympiakos on Wednesday.
It seems Chelsea are never far from another crisis and the latest drama revolves around the future of Grant, who has looked an increasingly beleaguered figure in recent weeks.
The Blues manager has never completely won over the players or fans at Stamford Bridge since replacing Jose Mourinho in September.
Grant's cause was hardly helped by his passive demeanour and confused tactics in the League Cup final meltdown against Tottenham.
John Terry's training ground row with assistant coach Henk Ten Cate in the build up to the match only added to the belief that the dressing room is a far from harmonious environment.
A lack of respect for Grant among his players is a constant theme in stories that hint Barcelona boss Frank Rijkaard is being lined up to replace the Israeli at the end of the season.
Goalless draw
Rijkaard insists he hasn't been approached by Chelsea and Grant does at least seem to have the support of owner and friend Roman Abramovich, but whether that would withstand the seismic shock of losing to unfancied Olympiakos is another matter entirely.
The last 16 second leg tie against the Greek champions is delicately poised after a goalless draw two weeks ago and represents a decisive moment in Grant's reign at Stamford Bridge.
He cannot afford a defeat but on the plus side, a convincing win at West Ham on Saturday raised spirits and Shaun Wright-Phillips is confident Chelsea can still go all the way in the Champions League despite their sketchy form on the big occasions.
"We will be disappointed in ourselves because with the players we have, we have the capabilities to win everything," he told BBC Radio Five. "We just try to take it game by game and the Champions League is the next game and is most important to us.
"As long as we keep winning and the lads keep playing like they did at Upton Park I think we can go all the way in all of them.
"We lost the cup final and we weren't happy with ourselves. We know as a team that we can do a lot better and we felt we let ourselves down and especially the fans."
Lone forward
The key to Grant's long-term future could rest on his ability to harness the prodigious talents of Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka.
They misfired at Wembley when Grant deployed Anelka as a winger, leaving Drogba isolated as the lone forward.
Grant's answer against West Ham was to drop Drogba and move Anelka up front. The France international gave a virtuoso performance and Chelsea thrived as a result.
But Grant can't afford to leave such an influential figure as Drogba on the sidelines for long. The must-win nature of the Olympiakos match could see the duo play in tandem for the first time.
They would surely be too formidable a force for the Greeks, who were knocked off top-spot in their domestic league at the weekend after being held to a 1-1 draw by Asteras Tripoli.
There was even more bad news after the match, when it was revealed that the club's former Newcastle and Portsmouth forward Lomana LuaLua had suffered a dislocated shoulder.
LuaLua will be sidelined on Wednesday and the burden of leading their attack will fall on Darko Kovacevic. But even the talented Serb might find giving Grant another headache is a step too far.
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Rugby
