Former Chelsea defender Marcel Desailly believes that Arsenal‘s unbeaten Premier League season of 2003/04 prevented Claudio Ranieri from building something good at Stamford Bridge, as it led to Roman Abramovich appointing Jose Mourinho.
Ranieri was sacked by Chelsea in the summer of 2004 to allow them to hire then-Porto manager and Champions League winner Mourinho.
He returned to English football last summer with Leicester City after bouncing around Europe with many jobs, from the Greece national team to Monaco in Ligue 2, and many didn’t give him a hope of achieving anything remotely successful at the King Power Stadium.
However, less than a year later he sits top of the Premier League with only four games left to play, and on the verge of an incredible triumph, but Desailly believes he could’ve done the same at Chelsea 12 years ago had they not sacked him.
“I’m happy for him with this end of career, because he’s not going to coach for the next 10 years,” Desailly told FourFourTwo. “He’s not been a winning coach. [In] 2004 we were supposed to win the league, but unfortunately Arsenal were ‘The Invincibles’ and he got sacked while he was building something good.
“You can see from how he talks he’s calm, but I’m happy at least to get Leicester to the Champions League qualifiers. Now we are all expecting to see when is going to be the announcement that Leicester, like Blackburn, have won the Premier League, because we are tired of it being the same.”
The Foxes have surprised everyone, including themselves, to sit top of the league, and are on the brink of the most incredible triumph. As the big sides like Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester City, Liverpool and Manchester United have fell aside this season, Leicester have taken complete advantage of their slips.
They’ve used the winning run they went on to survive relegation last year to kick-start this campaign, and just kept the ball rolling throughout.
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