Kenyon's claims end up around his ankles

Shock will register fully only when Sir Alex Ferguson strides to his Old Trafford seat tomorrow, still half-expecting to see Jose Mourinho in the blue corner, and fixes his baffled gaze instead on an opponent who had not managed outside Israel before he became Roman Abramovich's buddy.

Avram Grant could not say how

many Champions League games he

has been involved in but the

consensus is six.

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"You count better

than me," he said. There was

another counting game going on:

how many months, or weeks, can

this softly-spoken background

figure survive in Mourinho's long

shadow?

"This is a permanent appointment,"

Chelsea's harassed chief

executive Peter Kenyon insisted

before a heavy clunk arrived with

the news that Grant has yet to

receive a contract.

The stunned expressions of

Chelsea's backroom staff were all

you needed to see as Grant

stepped up from the Israeli

national team, Maccabi Haifa and

Maccabi Tel Aviv to take charge of

the world's richest club, with its

array of £100,000-a week one-man

corporations.

A club with a stated

aim of winning two Champions

League titles in 10 years; a club

where the owner is now suspected

of appointing a yes-man whose

languid style will surely underwhelm

a set of players who fed off

Mourinho's demonic wit and

energy.

However much they protested

under a bombardment of which

Paxman would have been proud,

Chelsea are making it up as they go

along.

The criterion three years ago

was that only an A-list coach could

match their ambitions. Now, a

manager from a minor footballing

nation has been fast-tracked from

the director of football role at

Portsmouth to head of a

£500million investment whose

adversaries include AC Milan,

Barcelona and Real Madrid.

Chelsea will throw a fit when they

read the reviews of Grant' s

appointment. They will say the

media have jumped in with both

boots on a decent man before he

has had a chance to select his first

team.

Maybe. But it was they, not us,

who concocted the Blue Revolution,

London FC philosophy, so for

several hours yesterday we stared

at the chair where Mourinho used

to be half-expecting to see a familiar

figure walk in.

Jurgen Klinsmann, Guus Hiddink, Mark Hughes: anyone

who might kill the grandstand

fear of an exodus by the club's best

players.

"Arsene who?" went down in newspaper

headline legend as Arsenal's

greatest manager stepped off a

plane from Japan.

But the heaving

tide of scepticism that greeted

Grant's unveiling in an arena where

fewer than 25,000 turned up for a

Champions League game in midweek

made the Arsene Wenger of 11

years ago seem a household name.

As if to emphasise the strong

Russian-Israeli connection, Grant

just about managed to speak

before sundown brought the 24-

hour constraints of Yom Kippur.

By

the time Mourinho's replacement

wakes to face Manchester United,

he will have refrained from eating

and drinking, wearing leather shoes

and anointing himself with perfumes

and lotions. Then the scent

of battle will wash over him.

Hull City in the Carling Cup

would have been a gentler introduction.

Typical of Mourinho to

depart five days before Chelsea

were due in Fergie's lair. Maximum

drama, maximum pain.

"Good fun, this," Grant must have

thought as the questions rained in.

Most of them related to the Greek

tragedy of Mourinho's departure.

The "how" and the "why" of an inexplicable

loss. There was something

in Grant's demeanour that said he

knows he's entering a world of pain.

His first public words as Chelsea

manager were: "I think you know

that I am a person of my own." And

for a while the room surrendered to

gentle admiration when we learned

that Grant had insisted on 100 per

cent autonomy in team selection.

Then again, Kenyon tried to persuade

us that not a single purchase

of the Mourinho era had failed to

meet the manager's approval. "Not

even Shevchenko, not even

Shevchenko," Kenyon spluttered.

History is rewritten like this every

day. Memories bend under duress.

That's being kind. At one point

Kenyon seemed about to buckle.

Every major claim he and his fellow

corporate buccaneers have ever

made were around their ankles.

There was no dodging the sense

that all the glamour, all the chutzpah

has drained from Chelsea's

face.

Mourinho announced himself

as "a special one". Grant lurched

the other way and declared: "I'm a

normal person. There are seven

billion people in the world and no

two are the same," he went on.

The age of eccentricity has

passed. Further north, Ferguson

chalks up another victim.

Money says that we'll be back one

day in this sweaty chamber greeting

a Big Dog of the managerial

forest. Next summer, if not before.

Today is a day off for Grant on

grounds of religion. Tomorrow

brings a hellish ordeal: 76,000 pairs

of eyes boring into him, and no

contract and no coaching staff,

beyond Steve Clarke. There are

some things money can't buy.

GIVE JERMAIN A BREAK

Jermain Defoe's career is being vandalised. Fourth-choice striker at

Tottenham and ignored by England as a consequence, Michael Owen's understudy is

like one of those fighters denied a shot at the title by the mob.

Is Blinky Palermo's

ghost blocking his path

to the top? The ProZone

addicts say Defoe's lack

of mobility outside the

area is his weakness.

These days forwards are

expected to dash about

like Speedy Gonzalez.

Natural predators are

distrusted.

Nobody is

saying Defoe is the

finished item yet, but at

24 he has a good deal

more to offer than both

club and country

currently allow.

Two peachy goals in the UEFA

Cup were preceded by a

standing ovation from

Tottenham's fans when

he came on after 63

minutes.

More poignant was his

presence in the

dressing-room last

Saturday after he had

been omitted from the

16-man squad to face

Arsenal. Defoe went

round wishing his

colleagues well.

Humiliating, no doubt,

for someone who has

scored 56 times in 151

appearances for the

club but whose talents

are being allowed to

stagnate.

Some say the signing of

Darren Bent for

£16.5million had little to

do with Martin Jol, from

whose mouth faint

praise flowed after

Thursday's cameo.

If so,

the forgotten marksman

is a victim of politics as

much as unflattering

ProZone stats.

I interviewed Defoe a

couple of years ago and

picked up a fierce

devotion to his art.

He came across as an

obsessive.

That quality

will always provide a

good defence against

the charge of

arrogance.

Yet to start a game for

Spurs this season, he is

entitled now to test the

market in the January

transfer window.

There is no greater

incentive to keep

digging a tunnel under

the wire than a sense of

injustice. Especially at

24.

THE FAREWELL GAMES

This is a weekend for

letting go. Jose

Mourinho has left the

Chelsea circus and eyes

will moisten when Tim

Henman takes his final

bow a few stops down

the District Line.

Last week, there

seemed every chance

that England's

shattered rugby mob

would be shuffling off

their stage as well.

But there is a pluckier

look to Brian Ashton' team to face Samoa in

Nantes today. A

combination of Shaun

Perry, Mike Catt, Andy

Farrell and Jamie Noon

in the creative

department was never

likely to threaten South

Africa's sleep.

Now, though, Jonny

Wilkinson, Olly Barkley

and Mathew Tait return

to revive Ashton's

attacking principles.

Henman lets go,

England hold on. Just.

PLATINI MISSES BOAT

It was a nice try

by Michel Platini to write to

our Prime Minister to

urge him not to allow

the Premier League to

become one big

investment

opportunity for

speculators.

But the

UEFA president must

have missed the news

that New Labour

worships the free

market the way

Druids venerate

Stonehenge.

The best

clue was Gordon

Brown inviting Lady

Thatcher to No 10 for

tea. In a noble cause,

Platini wasted a sheet

of Basildon Bond.

OBSTACLES AHEAD FOR JOHNSON

Martin Johnson's return to

the England fold as general

manager might yet run into the obstacle

of his antipathy to Francis Baron, the

boisterous Rugby Football Union chief

executive, who will doubtless run a mile

when it comes to catching the hot ball of

blame for England's so far dismal

showing at the World Cup.

The inside track is that the Johnson-Sir

Clive Woodward dream ticket was scuppered by the RFU's urge to exact

revenge on Woodward for trashing the

joint in his resignation speech as head

coach. The director of rugby job went to

Rob Andrew instead.

So if Johnson offers his services next

month, the town might not be big

enough for both England's finest

captain in either football code since

Bobby Moore and the man who runs

Twickenham.