Benitez, Chelsea and the successful season

Now he's officially departing Cobham in a few weeks, we can begin to evaluate more fully Rafael Benitez's star-cross'd reign at Chelsea.

At present, the Blues are locked in a tight battle for a Champions League position, while also active on two further fronts: the Europa League and, after Monday's victory against Old Rivals United, the FA Cup.

More correctly, we ask what would constitute a a successful season for Benitez in a personal sense.  With free agency looming, Occam's Razor suggests he will only leave the club satisfied should he add trophies to his resume.  The Premiership is gone, perhaps even before he arrived, meaning a successful season for Rafael Benitez depends upon twinned FA Cup/Europa League wins.

Rafael Benitez is firmly cognizant that he has to leave Chelsea with something (or things) to show for an eventful six months.

Even were he to available to boss the Blues next season, he would have to hang his hat on Cups competition, because he has led the Blues to rather haphazard league form: predecessor Roberto Di Matteo averaged 2.0 points per contest this term while Rafa's Blues have managed only 1.72.

However, he has propelled them relatively easily into the latter stages of both remaining Cups competitions - to the extent that there are suggestions that he is deliberately focusing not on an administratively-desired Top Four position, but on collecting as much silverware as possible.

Upcoming/potential opponents in each of these winnable competitions might present some problems - but these could hardly be described as insoluble.

Should Chelsea qualify for the Big Dance next year - no matter if it's in third position or fourth - Benitez can proudly and justifiably say to any future employers that he signed off on three deliverables for his Russian plutocrat.  However, he must be well aware that multiple Europa League titles and FA Cup wins read better to potential employers than their solitary equivalents won half a decade ago or more.

Famously, Benitez was deprived of any real power by the word "interim" that hovered nebulously and forebodingly over his job title, and is now mobilising his endgame strategy using the only real power he retains - that of directing his charges.

If - and, at this stage we can only say if - Benitez is disregarding his current employer to make himself more desirable to future payors, then this is a passive-aggressive game of chicken for the ages.  Should it pay dividends, he automatically puts himself in the frame for some of the plum jobs in Europe; if not, he sleeps with management fishes.

While the Blues hold onto the all-important UCL qualifying position and remain in contention for two further trophies, Benitez's short reign must be seen as a tacit success.  However, should they drop the ball in all three competitions - an unlikely but possible "accomplishment" - then Rafael Benitez will become more toxic than he was before arriving in West London.

UEFA to force-feed the Golden Goose

The President of UEFA, Michel Platini, has hinted that the confederation is considering dropping the Europa League competition altogether in favour of an expanded Champions League. The move, mooted for some time between 2015 and 2018, would see the unpopular continental second-tier system removed as and football's big money spinner double in size to 64 teams.

Platini has proved somewhat of an egalitarian leader: throughout his presidency, he has championed the expansion of the UEFA European Championships (the Euros) to 32 teams – or over 60 percent of the continent represented. Should the Europa League actually be canned, the Golden Goose Champions League credibility will be damaged: removing exclusivity from anything makes it far more commonplace.

The simple laws of physics state that increasing an object's size doesn't necessarily increase its impact – in fact, often it has the opposite effect.

That's not to say that the Europa League is great, because it really isn't. One of the principal failings of the Europa League has simply been the effort it demands, especially when players must front up in local leagues two days after lengthy trips abroad. Bigger clubs – especially in fixture-full England – have been known to simply send reserve sides overseas, sacrificing the competition for the sake of league position.

Rather than removing the Europa League or expanding the Champions League (which can't possibly hope to bring in more money now that ostensible top clubs are admitted almost by default), a better solution may be to simply resurrect the old UEFA Cup – a true home-and-away cup competition requiring less travel, less meaningless Thursday night encounters and each club having a true puncher's chance of advancing to the next round.

Think about it: Armenian champions Neftchi Baku look set to complete their Europa League experience this season with two points from a possible eighteen, both from draws with Serbian side Partizan Belgrade. The highlight of their continental football this season will almost certainly be a trip to the San Siro to play Inter Milan – in a reinstated UEFA Cup, the players retain their highlight and even have a chance at pulling off the unbelieveable.

A return to a continental cup competition is unlikely to proceed – the extra home dates afforded by a mini-league are simply too valuable for administrators and owners to give up. However, the romance afforded by smaller clubs taking on big money earners would certainly be hard to ignore. It's these realities which make a return to a Cup competition unlikely at best. But we can still hope.

Fulham to join Stoke and Birmingham in Europa League?

As the Premiership season hurtles to a satisfying conclusion, few may be more sated than Mark Hughes. The Welshman, in his twelfth year of management, has led Fulham to tenth place so far this season, boasts a +4 Goal Difference and a fair play record which sees them firmly in contention for European football next season.

Roundly pilloried in his early days at Craven Cottage - for a combination of factors including the club's mediocre-at-best early form, his egregiousness about his time at Manchester City, an insistence that every opposing manager properly shake hands with him and finally, his not being Roy Hodgson. Using a finally-healthy forward trio of Andy Johnson, Moussa Dembele and - critically - Bobby Zamora, Hughes has masterminded the Cottagers back from a perilous December position. Fulham still struggle to win away from home, but they've solidified their spot as a mid-table Premiership team and haven't had a player sent off since 2009.

UEFA awards a Europa League position to the best-behaved club (in terms of red and yellow cards) in each of the three best-behaved European leagues, so long as that club hasn't already qualified for the tournament. While Fulham lead the Premiership's disciplinary table, they haven't assured themselves of this spot - should they commit three yellows more than second-placed Blackpool (or worse, a couple of red cards) over their last two games, they would be

lose their position. Stoke City qualified for the tournament thanks to their FA Cup success, while Birmingham's League Cup triumph could see them playing in Podgorica next year. To see Blackpool - perhaps even from the Championship - would provide the most unlikely trio of English Europa League entrants in some time.

The Whites' positive goal difference is also a boon. Alongside freescoring midfielder Clint Dempsey, their primary forward trio of Johnson, Zamora and Dembele have played a combined forty-two starts as Dembele and Zamora have spent much of the season recovering from broken legs. Each of the three has a differing, harmonising se

t of skills - Big Bobby's the target-man with eyes on an England call-up, Johnson's the archetypal goal poacher while Dembele is fleet of foot and nimble in the link-up.

This trident - thrust by Dempsey and Danny Murphy - has Fulham, Michael Jackson statue and all, sitting tenth in the league. Even after receiving an entertaining 5 -2 thrashing at the hands of Liverpool, Fulham boast a goal difference of +4, the second-best figure over the past ten EPL seasons for a club finishing in that position. Should they finish lower this differential could be a Premiership record. Like many managers, Hughes is most visible in defeat. That very little has been said of him during 2011 could perhaps be the ultimate compliment that his job in London has been completed in the image of the man himself - with very little fuss.

Image: Fulham's owner, Mohammed Al-Fayed with plastic friend. Courtesy: sports.yahoo.com

Fulham FC: The Good, The Bad and the Ego

Roy Hodgson is now an honorary Scouser. Mark Hughes is returned from the living Dead. The King is dead, long live the King.

Hughes returns to football management after six months in the near-wilderness. Apart from being linked with jobs as far apart as Turkey, the Cote d'Ivoire and West Ham, his choice of taking over a Fulham squad coming off probably the most successful year in its history is in itself laudable and curious. Even following a long Europa League campaign where the Cottagers were defeated in the final by a (probably) superior Atletico Madrid, Fulham remains a smallish club with ambitions and finances far-removed from Hughes' last position.

Perhaps he has decided his best move is overachieving with a small- or mid-market club but doesn this put Hughes in a quandary? He's come from unlimited resources, and apparently has rebuffed interest from several interested parties simply because he was once the manager of a “big club” and wanted a job in keeping with his results and reputation. He's had money and therefore had no interest in slumming it at his next role which is sort of admirable, but if it's your club being rebuffed it can leave a sour taste in the mouth. It's now no secret, Mark Hughes has an ego, for better or worse.

I say for better. Surely at a Fulham FC coming from some moderate success yet needing some squad renewal, ego is a good thing? If as has been intimated Hughes is so sure of himself then his first task is to ensure some of that rubs off onto his charges. A manager with a well-developed sense of ego tends to engender one of three moods in his squad: inspiration, alienation or a weird bastard child of the both. Hughes is well known to be quite soft-spoken, at least softly-spoken enough so as not to be abrasive, but if his methods and results differ too greatly from those of Hodgson (another mild-mannered gaffer) he risks the senior players upping and leaving.

The fine line that Hughes must tread is that of empowering his playesr while getting them to buy into his methods. If you told me that this could be done by either an egomaniac or a serf, I'd pick the Kevin Pietersen clone any time: as success breeds success, if done correctly self-belief breeds self-belief. Hodgson mastered this excellently; Hughes has both the wherewithal and the ability to instil this into his squad as witnessed by his tenure at Blackburn. In that small market he squeezed the best out of potential topliners Roque Santa Cruz and Morten Gamst Pedersen, as well as from players previously viewed as plodders like Jason Roberts. He has form for getting the most from his charges, and that in itself is a big tick for a smaller-market manager. Given the limited funding, the other thing a smaller market manager must do this without alienating his roster. If he can get all the players looking in one direction he will have success because he followed the formula: buy in + empowerment + discipline (which comes from the respect gained by empowering the players) = results.