According to Tony Adams 10 days ago, Gianluca Vialli was preparing to have a year out when his present Chelsea contract expired next June. It was something Vialli had always regretted not doing before, Adams said: "I think it might be his last season. If he's unsuccessful, they'll get rid of him anyway."
Those look prophetic words this morning. Neither Chelsea nor Vialli had entered into the customary negotiations about extending his stay at the Bridge and when the subject of contracts finally came up yesterday, it was in a very final way for Vialli.
Yet while it may have been the Chelsea chairman-owner Ken Bates and his managing director Colin Hutchison who broke the news to Vialli just five matches into the season, as Vialli's agent Athole Still revealed last night, it was the players who did for Vialli. If Adams's words suggest that Vialli had lost a little faith in himself and the battle, then the players sensed that and lost faith in him. In football, players' lost faith equals manager's lost job.
To his credit, rather than feigning ignorance of the situation and hence encouraging martyrdom, Vialli, said Still: "Accepts that he lost the confidence of some of the players. There was not the spirit in the camp that he or Chelsea wanted." Whether that helps Vialli come to terms with the "sacking" - his description - is another matter, although Still said that Vialli is: "Not angry in any way."
That certainly fits in with the phlegmatic impression Vialli has created in England since arriving from Juventus, a casual style that has made the Italian popular far beyond the limits of west London. His ready smile, his v-neck jumpers, his habit of calling his players "The chaps", all these endeared Vialli to a wide public.
They also camouflaged other facets of Vialli. First of all his ruthlessness, a feature that certainly surprised Ruud Gullit when he was ejected from Stamford Bridge 19 months ago. Due to Chelsea's propaganda Gullit's removal was blamed on the Dutchman's greed, but there were also murmurs about disillusioned players. The idea that Vialli was not one of these - remember the number of times he was left on the bench by Gullit - or that he did not know of the coming putsch, is laughable.
Having got the job of the man who brought him to England, Vialli then used the same policy with which Gullit had irritated so many players - rotation. When it worked it was great, when it didn't it just grated. Vialli should have been alive to the dangers of the tactic, yet when Gianfranco Zola was withdrawn with Chelsea beating Arsenal 2-1 and was then omitted at Newcastle on Saturday, it was apparent that Vialli could not see, or simply ignored, what was obvious to others: Zola's disaffection.
Indeed, after the 5-1 demolition in Barcelona in April, it all appeared to be unravelling at Chelsea. Then they won the FA Cup, got rid of Chris Sutton, a £10 million Vialli purchase, bought Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and beat Manchester United well in the Charity Shield. Chelsea's title odds were cut to 4 to 1 after that. But then came Bradford and Arsenal.
Most of the above names are foreign. That, too, is significant, Vialli selecting all-foreign teams for the games against Southampton and Lazio. Vialli will be remembered most for that in England, if not by some of the players chosen.
