Roberto Di Matteo is the latest Chelsea manager to be removed from his post by the club's Russian owner Roman Abramovich, but what happened to his predecessors?

Just six months ago Di Matteo led Chelsea to the Champions League. Here we look at his predecessors in the Chelsea hotseat and what became of them:

Claudio Ranieri (September 2000 to May 2004)

Life under Abramovich: The first manager to spend Abramovich's billions was under pressure from day one amid rumours Sven-Goran Eriksson was being lined up to replace him. The "Tinkerman" tag did not help the Italian and, despite finishing second in the Premier League and reaching the Champions League semi-finals, he was sacked.

Life after Abramovich: Returned to his former club Valencia, immediately winning the European Super Cup, but was sacked six months later. Has won nothing since, despite landing prestigious jobs at Parma, Juventus, Roma, and Internazionale. Currently managing Monaco in France's second tier.

José Mourinho (June 2004 to September 2007)

Life under Abramovich: Declared himself the "Special One" and completely lived up to the moniker, becoming the most successful Chelsea manager ever. Immediately ended their 50-year wait for a league title with back-to-back Premier League crowns and also won the FA Cup and two Carling Cups. Champions League glory remained elusive and a power struggle with Abramovich eventually saw him leave.

Life after Abramovich: Heavily linked with the England job before eventually resurfacing at Internazionale. One of the most successful managers in their history, he became only the third coach to win the European Cup with two different clubs. Now at Real Madrid where he became the first man to win league titles in England, Italy and Spain, although Champions League success currently evades him in the Spanish capital.

Avram Grant (September 2007 to May 2008)

Life under Abramovich: Less than two months after arriving as Chelsea's director of football, Grant found himself parachuted into the manager's role. Speculation was rife he did not have the backing of the dressing room but still managed to get the club to their only Champions League final up until then. Also reached the Carling Cup final and finished second in the Premier League before he was sacked.

Life after Abramovich: History repeated itself as Grant joined Portsmouth as director of football in October 2009, once again becoming manager less than two months later. Boosted his reputation by leading the side to the FA Cup final despite administration saga that saw them relegated. Resigned and joined West Ham but was sacked after they were also relegated.

Luiz Felipe Scolari (July 2008 to February 2009)

Life under Abramovich: Billed as the man to inspire Chelsea to take the final step in the Champions League, the World Cup-winner enjoyed a flying start but things soon began to go wrong amid rumours of dressing room unrest. The timing of the Brazilian's sacking after just seven months still came as shock.

Life after Abramovich: Made surprise decision to move to Uzbekistan and join the champions Bunyodkor, although the salary reportedly made him one of the highest-paid managers around. Left after less than a year and returned to former club Palmeiras, but recently lost his job.

Guus Hiddink (February 2009 to May 2009)

Life under Abramovich: Still revered by players and fans for rescuing Chelsea's season while combining the Russia job with a caretaker role at Stamford Bridge. Won the FA Cup and was desperately unlucky not to reach the Champions League final, Hiddink lost only one game in charge.

Life after Abramovich: Continued as Russia boss until June 2010, leaving after failing to lead them to the World Cup. Became Turkey manager but left in November after losing another play-off, this time for the European Championships. Persistently linked with a return to Chelsea after Carlo Ancelotti was sacked before joining the mega-rich Russian club Anzhi Makhachkala in February.

Carlo Ancelotti (June 2009 to May 2011)

Life under Abramovich: Recruited largely because of two Champions League successes at Milan, instead delivered Chelsea's first ever double in his first season. Nevertheless, his reputation was damaged by losing in the Champions League last 16, and a trophyless season followed.

Life after Abramovich: Linked with several jobs in England and abroad, December saw him appointed manager of the big-spending Ligue 1 leaders Paris Saint-Germain.

André Villas-Boas (June 2011 to March 2012)

Life under Abramovich: Arrived in London to a splash of publicity and dubbed the new Mourinho after a stellar spell in charge of Porto, which took in domestic and European titles. Cracks soon emerged, though, with senior players reportedly baffled by his methods and unhappy with his selection policy. He was sacked after a defeat at West Brom.

Life after Abramovich: Returned to English football in the summer when he replaced Harry Redknapp at Tottenham. Domestic form has been mixed, with a memorable victory at Manchester United the highlight and punishing derby defeats to Arsenal and Chelsea the lows.

Benítez is a winner and can get the best out of Fernando Torres, but his skills stretch far beyond that

According to his critics, Rafa Benítez is a power-hungry, money-wasting, self-obsessive, unfit to manage at the very highest level. Yet it appears that in selecting who should next be in charge of Chelsea, Roman Abramovich has decided to put his faith in those who have more positive things to say about the Spaniard, and, perhaps, one person in particular.

"Rafa Benítez has been the most important coach in my career. He has been the only one who knew how to help me improve. His priority is the team but he adapts the conditions to make everyone fit in the team. That's his secret. He taught me a lot and thanks to him I matured as a professional."

These are the words Fernando Torres shared with Esquire magazine in November 2011, 10 months after he joined Chelsea from Liverpool for a record £50m fee and during a period of 25 games in which the striker failed to score for club or country. That drought is typical of the general malaise Torres has endured throughout his time at Stamford Bridge, one that will have caused Abramovich much frustration and fury given how much time, energy and money he spent on luring the 28-year-old to west London. Upon weighing up who could replace Roberto Di Matteo as Chelsea manager it is perhaps not a surprise the Russian seems to have decided to turn to the man who has got the most out of "El Niño".

Under Benítez's guidance, Torres scored 33 goals in 46 appearances during his first season at Anfield, 17 goals in 38 appearances in his second and, in their third and final campaign together, 24 goals in 32 appearances, completing a transformation from the raw and less-than-prolific 23-year-old who arrived on Merseyside from Atlético Madrid for a little more than £20m in July 2007 to one of the world's most feared centre-forwards.

It would be over-simplistic to believe Benítez can coax the same amount of stardust from Torres now given the injuries and palpable slump in confidence the player has endured since he and his compatriot were last together – and should Chelsea succeed in their pursuit of Didier Drogba, the Spain international may find his chances to shine under Benítez restricted anyway– but as Abramovich surveys Torres's struggles in blue, with a nadir reached in Tuesday's defeat at Juventus when Di Matteo decided to leave the striker on the bench and instead start with Eden Hazard up front, it may have seemed obvious to try one last time to revive the £50m man's fortunes.

As any Valencia or Liverpool supporter will point out, however, Benítez's skills stretch far beyond his ability to get the best out of Torres. This, after all, is a man who over nine years won two La Liga titles, the Uefa Cup, the Champions League and the FA Cup, and came within four points of clinching the Premier League. He is, in other words, a high-class manager and it has been rather absurd that since his sacking by Internazionale in 2010 following an unsuccessful attempt to walk in the crater-like footsteps José Mourinho left at San Siro, that Benítez has only been linked with vacancies at clubs such as Aston Villa and Wolverhampton Wanders. With all due respect, he is above that.

To some extent, Benítez has been the victim of a myth and propaganda campaign that built up around him following his acrimonious departure from Liverpool in June 2010, just as the club was beginning to burn at the hands of Tom Hicks and George Gillett. He was depicted as a poor manager having guided Liverpool to seventh in his last campaign there, with the critics forgetting his second-place finish from the season before, and also as someone with a failed record in the transfer market, a claim that focuses on the mistakes and conveniently forgets the successes, such as Xabi Alonso, Pepe Reina, Daniel Agger, Martin Skrtel, Javier Mascherano and Torres.

Some criticism of Benítez's record is fair. There is, for instance, no doubt that he is a political animal whose desire for control and maximum say can cause schism at a club – Benítez is the man who detested Hicks yet sided with the Texan during Anfield's civil war because he figured it would strengthen his position and lead, as it did, to the exit of Rick Parry as the chief executive – and this makes Abramovich's decision to call the 52-year-old from his hibernation on the Wirral rather curious. For the Chelsea owner has proven himself a man of firm opinions and little diplomacy and, in attempting to rescue Chelsea's season, he has opted for someone who sees the same character when he looks in the mirror. Fireworks between the pair are practically guaranteed.

But Benítez is a winner and has proven his ability to get the best out of Torres, and while Abramovich waits for Pep Guardiola he has clearly decided Benítez represents his next, best go-to man. Moving to Chelsea offers Benítez the return to high-level management he has been waiting for since leaving Inter.

James Dart considers the climate for football managers, and says Pep Guardiola may be wary of accepting an offer from Roman Abramovich

Mr Abramovich has got through pricey managers faster than Henry VIII cast off wives

Say what you like about Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, he gives his managers time. Roberto Di Matteo got a whole six months from coaching Chelsea to a European and FA Cup double to being shown the door. The club's statement, weighing all of 186 words, observed that "recent … results have not been good enough". True enough, as anyone who saw Tuesday's whipping in Turin will confirm – but how recent is recent? Mr Abramovich has got through pricey managers faster than Henry VIII cast off wives. The dapper Di Matteo joins Claudio Ranieri, José Mourinho, Avram Grant, Luiz Felipe Scolari, Guus Hiddink, Carlo Ancelotti and André Villas-Boas as plutocrat castoffs. Over eight years, Chelsea have spent £86m on compensation for axed managers. We wish Rafa Benítez well, but offer him one piece of advice: even if your interim appointment to the end of the season is extended, don't lose the number for that removals firm.

Consistency may be one of the Chelsea owner's virtues but it causes a rapid turnover of managers, and at quite a cost

To understand the way Roman Arkadievich Abramovich goes about his various businesses, which range from dealing in the earth's natural resources to manipulating the personnel of a football club, it helped to spend a couple of days watching him give evidence in London's high court this time last year, defending himself against his former business partner Boris Berezovsky's attempt to recover about £5bn out of which he claimed to have been cheated.

Abramovich won, of course. His legal costs, which will be met by the loser, are estimated to have been in the region of £35m, of which around £10m is said to have gone to his advocate, Jonathan Sumption QC, who was enjoying a last big payday at the bar. A defendant who can reward his barrister with such a sum is hardly going to be unduly inconvenienced by the need to pay off football managers at the rate of approximately one per season.

As he outlined his case, Abramovich made a powerful impression. This was not the man who ambles quietly across the Stamford Bridge turf long after the crowd has gone home, wearing a rather vacant grin. He was alert, animated, precise in his responses and surprisingly expressive in his gestures.

Orphaned at the age of four, he graduated from selling rubber ducks to owning a considerable portion of Russia's natural resources. Such a man must necessarily be decisive and sometimes ruthless. To retain the patronage of Vladimir Putin, a certain consistency would also be required. Those qualities can be seen in his treatment of the men he recruits to run his football club and then discards when the desired results are too slow to materialise.

Consistency may indeed be among the Russian's cardinal virtues. Luiz Felipe Scolari was dismissed after 223 days in charge. Avram Grant had 247. André Villas-Boas went after 256. Roberto Di Matteo, Wednesday's "victim", got 262. On that basis, you could even say the oligarch is getting more patient and forgiving as the years roll by. By small margins, admittedly, but then it was the small margins involved in transfer pricing -- the selling and repurchasing of oil -- that Abramovich consolidated the fortune which changed the face of Chelsea, allowing the fans of the West London club to celebrate almost a decade of triumphs on a scale beyond their wildest dreams.

Only one of Chelsea's last five managers has ended a season that he started. That is a truly astonishing fact, and it is one that would serve to condemn Abramovich as a destructive dilettante and a footballing ignoramus had his stewardship of the club not brought so much success.

It is a statistic that gives prospective incumbents a pretty good inkling of their likely fate, but it needs to be seen in conjunction with the fact that after Abramovich sacked Claudio Ranieri in 2004, José Mourinho won the club's first league title in 50 years and four other major trophies; after he removed Grant and Scolari, the caretaker Guus Hiddink won the FA Cup before Ancelotti won the Cup and Premier League in the same season; and after he sent Villas-Boas on his way, Di Matteo won the even more precious double of the Champions League and the FA Cup.

Future Chelsea managers are also comfortingly aware that they will be handsomely rewarded should things not work out to their employer's satisfaction. Abramovich has now spent £77m on divesting himself of the services of the men who have been unable to meet his expectations. An estimated £2m payoff for Di Matteo pales next to Mourinho's £18m or Ancelotti's £6m, but it is hardly chicken feed for seven months in charge, particularly since there will also have been a handsome bonus for the two trophies he added to the collection.

The money to pay off these managers, like the rest of the billion or so that he has splurged on Chelsea, came from a plundering of the wealth that once belonged to the people of the Soviet Union. Now it is recycled in the form of salaries and redundancy payments that trickle down to London's car salesmen, concierges, watchmakers, estate agents, fashion designers, chefs, security guards, croupiers, interior decorators and dealers in yachts and executive jets.

Such a consideration is unlikely to cloud the thoughts of Chelsea's fans, particularly when rival clubs are also in questionable hands, but they may be bewildered by the demise of Di Matteo, a former player who is held in considerable affection, as was the case with Ray Wilkins, so mysteriously and damagingly axed as Ancelotti's assistant two Novembers ago.

But the evidence is that Di Matteo did what he was asked to do between 4 March, the date of Villas-Boas's departure, and 19 May, when the European Cup was won in Munich, and did it extremely well, before demonstrating that he had no more to offer when it came to replacing the spine of the side once represented by John Terry, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba. Finally he was condemned by an inability to organise a coherent defence in Terry's absence or to make a lasting success of an expensively acquired attacking group including Juan Mata, Eden Hazard and Oscar. On that basis, the verdict is perhaps not so hard to understand. The irony, of course, is that he leaves having proved that a swift and brutal execution can be exactly what is required.

At least the next man, Rafa Benítez, has more of the season left than was available to Di Matteo when he accepted promotion to the manager's job. That may be a blessing and a curse. He will also have to convince the Stamford Bridge fans, who will suspect that he is only there until Abramovich can persuade Josep Guardiola to end his sabbatical next summer. But after this latest twist in the saga of the owner's quest for football that is both world-conquering and world-seducing, at least everyone is a little clearer on where they stand.

Roman Abramovich, the owner, appears to have an entirely different notion of a manager's significance

Chelsea were once a music hall joke. Now they are more of a running gag. The only surprising thing about Roman Abramovich's dismissal of his latest manager, Roberto Di Matteo, this week was that anybody should be surprised.

True Di Matteo had fulfilled the Russian owner's dream six months earlier by leading Chelsea to success in the Champions League but under Roman's law winning honours merely guarantees a manager's departure sooner rather than later. Describing the latest incumbent, Rafael Benítez, as an interim appointment is surely tautologous since no manager under Abramovich has stayed in the job long enough to regard the position as permanent, although José Mourinho did last a whole three years.

Di Matteo is the ninth to leave during the oligarch's nine years in charge and only one of those, Guus Hiddink, went of his own accord. Thus it is tempting to draw a parallel with Jesús Gil who, during his 16 years as president of Atlético Madrid, treated coaches like disposable tissues.

This, however, would be less than fair to Abramovich. Gil had to wait nine years before one of his many appointments, Raddy Antic, brought Atlético their first Spanish league title in 19 years whereas Abramovich's Chelsea had won the Premier League three times, the FA Cup four times and the League Cup twice before last season's Champions League triumph. Their supporters must be grateful for that.

Abramovich appears to have an entirely different notion of what a manager's significance and status should be. For most of those in the game the ideal manager gives a club not only success but stability and continuity and the longer he stays the better. Manchester United and Arsenal have the prime examples in Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsène Wenger, with Everton's David Moyes not far behind.

Chelsea's owner, however, appears to view the manager much as a theatrical impresario regards the director of the latest production. He is there for as long as the show runs and once the run ends it is someone else's turn. Di Matteo might as well have quit once Didier Drogba's penalty won the shootout against Bayern Munich in the Champions League final, payoff or no payoff.

Maybe Di Matteo's decision to drop Fernando Torres for Tuesday's game against Juventus in Turin, when a 3-0 defeat left the European champions on the brink of an early departure from this season's tournament, was the last straw for Abramovich. The misfiring Spanish striker, like Citizen Kane's dodgy diva, has become an embarrassment. Chelsea's attack is pining for the departed Drogba, whose return on loan would have been the ultimate irony seeing that it was he who did more than anyone to make Di Matteo something more than a caretaker.

Yet Chelsea's recent poor run of form has less to do with Torres's paucity of goals than serious leakages in their defence, which have not been helped by the loss of the injured John Terry for a few weeks. Terry has not only been the binding force at the back but is a major strength in the group of senior players who have carried the team through under a succession of managers.

Di Matteo's predecessor, André Villas‑Boas, was supposedly brought in to reorganise Chelsea as players such as Terry, Ashley Cole and Frank Lampard approached their sell-by dates but left amid reports of discontent in the ageing ranks. Originally Di Matteo was there to mend fences. Trouble was he also made a bit of history.

It is hard to see how Pep Guardiola, Abramovich's real target, can fit into this confused scenario. Guardiola's reputation with Barcelona was earned by his patient development of one of the most accomplished teams the world has ever seen, which took rather more time than Abramovich's appointments at Chelsea have been allowed so far. Why take a year out of the game to rest mind and body in order to walk a tightrope without a safety net at Stamford Bridge?

Presumably Benítez has been brought in because he was available, very available! Well he did take Liverpool to two Champions League finals, winning one of them, but he also oversaw the departure of Xabi Alonso, from which Anfield has never fully recovered.

Has Abramovich considered rehiring Mourinho? The return of the Special One would make the Second Coming a bit of an anticlimax but at least Chelsea would know what they were getting.

Perhaps that's the problem.

Chelsea have had unprecedented success under the Russian but they are fast losing admirers

At Stamford Bridge, Roman Abramovich is everywhere and nowhere. When Rafael Benítez was unveiled in a suite named after the man who captained Chelsea to their only league title of the pre-Abramovich era, the Spaniard blinked into the flashbulbs alone apart from the club's overworked communications director.

The chief executive, Ron Gourlay, was absent, despite the FA having just announced that the referee Mark Clattenburg had no case to answer over Chelsea's claim that he had racially abused one of their players. Nor was Bruce Buck, their urbane chairman, there to face the music. And, of course, there was no sign of the man who has poured £1bn into Chelsea over the past decade, around £86m on paying up the contracts of sacked managers alone, and who last week wrote off his latest £166m loan.

Abramovich, who will next year celebrate the 10th anniversary of his dramatic arrival as Chelsea's then-unknown new owner, has always let his money do the talking. Not a great deal more is known about his intentions now than it was then.

His fortune, estimated this year at $12.1bn (£7.5bn) by Forbes, has been invested in yachts (including $250m on the world's biggest), fine art, a private jet and homes throughout the world. But, at Chelsea at least, his controversially acquired fortune does not appear to have bought him happiness.

For the first time, pressure on him to break that silence and explain his decisions is coming from the club's fans as well as the media. Where they once sang songs about being "fucking loaded" and clapped along to Russian folk ditties before kick-off, some have begun to feel ambivalent about the dysfunctional way the club is run.

Chelsea, pulled in all directions by the owner's capricious nature and the accompanying pendulum swings in investment, are at once European champions, third in the league, in a state of perpetual revolution and under fire from all sides. Abramovich is a constant presence at the Bridge on matchdays, but satisfaction remains elusive – witness his expression in May when, having won the European Cup, he awkwardly embraced the man it is now clear he never really wanted as manager.

At various points during the Russian's tenure, Chelsea have claimed progress in moving towards a sustainable model and a semblance of normality in their executive structure. Just last week, they announced they had recorded a profit for the first time under Abramovich – albeit before last summer's splurge on talent including Oscar and Eden Hazard.

At various points, the rhetoric sounded convincing. But over the past year, it has seemed ridiculous. The owner's effect on Chelsea's hierarchy resembles nothing so much as Rupert Murdoch's empire during the period when his former lieutenant Andrew Neil referred to it as "the court of the Sun King", with underlings endlessly trying to second guess his desires at several steps removed.

Thirteen months have passed between the complaint that John Terry called Anton Ferdinand a "fucking black cunt" during a match against QPR and the Football Association deciding there was no evidence to support the claim that Clattenburg racially insulted Mikel John Obi. During that time, Abramovich has employed three managers.

They took in a debilitating legal saga that ended with the FA finding their captain guilty of racially abusing an opponent, their lowest league finish of the Abramovich era, the brutal sacking of two managers, and the usual summer whirl of activity in the transfer market at a net cost of £71.5m. Somewhere in the midst of all that, Chelsea enjoyed their greatest ever triumph in lifting the European Cup on a heady night in the Allianz Arena. Six months later, it is little exaggeration to say they are back at square one.

Internally, the club's power structures are strangely opaque. Abramovich's PA, Marina Granovskaia, has assumed a pivotal role as the main conduit to the owner on many matters. The technical director, Michael Emenalo, has risen virtually without trace – rapidly promoted from scout to assistant coach to his current post.

At Benítez's unveiling, he repeatedly referred to Emenalo's key role as the conduit to the owner on footballing matters: "The main thing is that I have spoken to Michael Emenalo, the technical director, and he's my link. I like to speak about football with him"

It has reached a stage where the once-lampooned Manchester City, for all the money they too have thrown at players and agents, appear enlightened benefactors in comparison.

City have invested in a systemic plan and an executive structure that should bear fruit long term and limit the potential for future embarrassment. Their Abu Dhabi owners appear to have learned from their mistakes, while Abramovich appears doomed to continue repeating his.

He might reasonably point to the trophies in the cabinet and nine years of unprecedented success, even if the most reliable-long term barometer – league position – appears on a downward tilt. And Chelsea too have invested in infrastructure – in the training ground at Cobham and a state-of-the-art academy, even if the results of the latter have been mixed at best.

But compared to their rivals for the upper berths of Deloitte's annual football finance revenue league table – both Manchester clubs, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Arsenal – there does not appear to be anything resembling a strategic plan.

How could there be when it is run according to one man's whims? The Russian's penchant for micro-management at his football club seems at odds with his hands-off attitude to the rest of his remaining business portfolio, which includes stakes in steel giant Evraz and mining firm Highland Gold.

Eight managers in six seasons, and the inevitable accompanying upheaval, is part of the story. But he has ended up not much further forward – Claudio Ranieri, the original "dead man walking", managed second in the Premier League and the semi-final of the Champions League in Abramovich's first season.

Abramovich famously fell in love with football after watching Manchester United beat Real Madrid 4-3 at Old Trafford. If his goal was to create a club that was admired from afar as well as within the confines of Stamford Bridge, he has ended up doing almost the opposite. Never have neutrals been more united in their distaste and even among a minority of season ticket holders there is suddenly talk of protests and boycotts.

On the pitch and off, many of Chelsea's current issues can be traced back to the shockwaves of Abramovich's split with the man who delivered the club's first league titles in half a century. While José Mourinho's team was expensively acquired, it was undeniably his.

That began to shift when Mourinho had Andriy Shevchenko foisted upon him and reached its logical conclusion when Roberto Di Matteo was sacked for failing to get the best out of Fernando Torres. The seven managers who have followed Mourinho have had to work largely with the expensively acquired but mismatched tools they were given. Benítez may again return to the spine of Mourinho's team to provide the steel and focus sorely lacking last week in Turin, leaving the wholesale overhaul of the squad that André Villas-Boas was brought in to initiate still on the drawing board.

Political manoeuverings and an alternative powerbase installed by Abramovich under Frank Arnesen did for Mourinho and ever since the internal machinations in the boardroom Chelsea have been Byzantine in their complexity. Insiders say Gourlay has brought a degree of stability since taking over from Peter Kenyon – but that there is only so much he can do as the ground constantly shifts beneath him. There are ongoing issues surrounding the stadium – with progress over finding a larger, more lucrative alternative to Stamford Bridge stalled – and the string of controversies is in danger of damaging the club's commercial potential around the globe.

All the biggest clubs look to exploit their brands overseas while struggling to comply with Uefa's break even rules; Manchester United are way ahead of the rest and Arsenal believe – rightly or wrongly – that their image is a major selling point. Despite the best efforts of their commercial team, it is becoming harder to see where Chelsea fit in, Kenyon's infamous boast that he would "turn the world blue" notwithstanding.

As Pep Guardiola ponders the situation from New York, it is surely inconceivable that the fallout from the past few weeks has not also registered with him, the real object of Abramovich's desire.

Chelsea would argue that with success comes jealousy. There may be some truth in that, but it does not go nearly far enough to explaining the reasons why they have become most neutral's least favoured team. The last 13 months in particular have been marked by a string of misjudgments, compounded by the lack of structure.

The rancid stench of the Terry incident was not cleared as well as it might have been – with Chelsea refusing to apologise directly to Ferdinand and instead focusing on their "duty of care" to Terry. The same was true on Thursday, when there was no remorse for the difficulties Clattenburg had been through.

Chelsea were right to say they had a duty of care to report Ramires' complaint, but they could have handled the fallout differently. An expression of sympathy would not have been the same as an admission of culpability. It is now understood that Chelsea will make a gesture of reconciliation of some kind towards Clattenburg in an attempt to calm troubled waters, but they are again left looking reactive rather than proactive.

Chelsea have often polarised opinion as a club but there have been times – the swinging Kings Road era of the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Gullit/Vialli/Zola-era, even Carlo Ancelotti's tenure – when they have been considered more warmly. Now the brand appears toxic.

Singling out the Olympians for more praise will only ruin them, so we should even things up by ridiculing the sporting miscreants

The BBC will host a glittering party on December 16 to celebrate the great and the greatest of British sport in 2012. But which of the 12 nominees for the Sports Personality of the Year award really needs more praise and adulation?

Exalting the Olympians with more garlands and flatter could take them further from reality and closer to the status of professional footballers. Instead of giving accolades to sporting stars who have already achieved their wildest dreams, we ought to bring down and ridicule the villains of the year – those overpaid and underperforming athletes who have disappointed in the last 12 months.

Bradley Wiggins has already won the Tour de France and he's sick of all the attention anyway. Rory McIlroy has the US PGA Championship to keep him warm over the long winter nights. Jessica Ennis became the nation's darling and turned her Olympic gold into a reported £5 million cash cow. Mo Farah has two Olympic golds and could be immortalised in the Oxford English Dictionary for his "Mobot" celebration. None of these stars needs another award.

For all the joy of 2012, this year threw up some great villains. Lance Armstrong stands out as a frontrunner. John Terry and Sepp Blatter make the list by virtue of their continued existence. Roman Abramovich made a late push for his inclusion by sacking Roberto Di Matteo. And Joey Barton upheld his devotion to villainy by critiquing French football in a silly French accent. What about Luiz Adriano's blatant rejection of fair play in the Champions League, the controversial tweeting of Conservative MP Aidan Burley or the brawling of boxers Dereck Chisora and David Haye?

Some picks from the comments section below:

Sportsman
Lance Armstrong

Sportswoman
Nadzeya Ostapchuk

Team
Chelsea FC

Manager
Craig Levein (crimes against football)

Newcomer
Dereck Chisora

Lifetime Achievement Award
Roman Abramovich

Moment of the Year
Trenton Oldfield's attempt at class warfare during the Boat Race

Godlike Genius Award for spectacular villainy
El Hadj Diouf

Chelsea appear to appoint managers on an interim basis only and the next one is unlikely to be any different

The most pointless, superfluous and routinely disregarded three-word phrase in the English language used to be "Level fill only", stencilled close to the rim of your nearest overflowing skip of builders' rubbish.

"Interim Chelsea manager" is a new and similarly unnecessary classification that suggests some of the past half-dozen Chelsea managers might have been permanent, or that once this transitional season is out of the way the real, long-term deal will be unveiled at Stamford Bridge.

Given that Chelsea managed to get shot of José Mourinho after three and a bit seasons that included two league titles in his first two years, it appears that any manager Roman Abramovich appoints will be on an interim basis, so why should the next one – ie, the one for whom Rafa Benítez is keeping the seat warm – be any different?

Does anyone seriously imagine that if Chelsea manage to land Pep Guardiola – and that is still a sizeable if – he will properly get his feet under the table and stick around at the Bridge for a decade or so? What if he doesn't adapt all that quickly to English football, or finds it harder to communicate with a cosmopolitan squad than he did with the resources on offer at the club he grew up with in Barcelona? Manchester City are supposedly eyeing Guardiola as well, but there is obviously a risk with a manager who has enjoyed all his success with one club in a country that happens to be leading the world. Guardiola might take to English football as readily as Mourinho and, er, Benítez, though there is at least a chance he might not, or might need more time, and if he does that at Chelsea he will join the interim list.

Does Abramovich really want 10 years of stability anyway, because his recent record of impatience hardly suggests it. Going through nine managers in eight years tends to make the best in the business, people who might reasonably require three or four seasons to lay down solid foundations, think twice before signing up for the circus. Presumably Abramovich knows that, but isn't bothered. Maybe managerial stability is overrated, something for clubs who have to make ends meet to put their faith in. For most clubs, hiring and firing managers is an expensive and wasteful business, because your new man will come in and spend time and money dismantling the work of his predecessor, but if Abramovich can afford all that upheaval without flinching – and he has been generous with financial settlements to sacked managers – it is possible he enjoys operating a zero tolerance policy towards failure in the hope that by reaching ever upwards the team will eventually be improved.

The trouble with that idea is it is the opposite of the ethos that has flourished at Barcelona this past decade or so, so sending for Guardiola may not be the most logical progression. It is easy to admire the Barcelona system, but it is not something Guardiola will be able to bring to London in his top pocket. It took the Catalans years to put what they currently have in place. It did not come about through a simple change of manager. The Spanish system of producing players is years ahead of the English model, and Barcelona is the club, or one of the two clubs, to which the very best aspire. The question, if Abramovich is as keen on Guardiola as reports suggest, is whether he intends to import Barcelona's self-replenishing football programme to this country, which is a project that would take years, or whether he wants to hire the guy with the biggest reputation in world football in the hope that he can make the sort of immediate impact Mourinho did eight years ago.

Many would guess the latter, since Abramovich seems to care little for long-term plans or solutions, which is why Guardiola may not be the shoo-in everyone thinks. He does have the biggest reputation in world football, as did Mourinho and Carlo Ancelotti and to a lesser extent Luiz Felipe Scolari, Guus Hiddink and André Villas-Boas in their time, but of that illustrious list only Mourinho scored an instant bullseye by judiciously and expensively strengthening a side that was already doing well under Claudio Ranieri.

Given that Mourinho is a lively character and a football genius – winning his second European Cup with the perennially underachieving Internazionale proved that – it could be that Abramovich got his choice of manager spot on first time round and has spent thepast five years desperately casting around for someone nearly as good. While one could examine the results of the various contests between Guardiola's Barcelona and Mourinho's Real Madrid in recent years and conclude that Guardiola has the upper hand, that does not necessarily make him the best manager, the most adaptable, or the obvious choice for Chelsea. Mourinho, who has proved he can switch countries and achieve almost instant success, remains the go-to man for swift improvement, as long as you are prepared to put up with his stunts and occasional silliness.

Not everybody wants that. Barcelona didn't fancy Mourinho, Real Madrid took a while to get used to him, and those who imagine Old Trafford might be Mourinho's next destination are warned that Manchester United would rather have a serious football man than a showman. With Mourinho you get both, with Guardiola you get more serious than show, so take your pick. If Guardiola is interested in working in England, and three of the top jobs could be available soon, United would make the best fit, though it is City who have moved to bring in his old chief executive and director of football from Barcelona.

Chelsea remain the best fit for Mourinho, though whether he would consider going back is another matter. Abramovich could always move for Steve Clarke instead. One imagines Chelsea have noticed that a former employee is sitting third in the table, occupying a Champions League place, doing rather better at West Bromwich Albion than Roberto Di Matteo did. It is unlikely that Abramovich will desist from stalking the big game of European football management to place his faith in a promising Brit who has served his apprenticeship in this country, but if West Brom stay above Chelsea for much longer in the Premier League table Clarke might get the nod as the next interim.

We live in a globalised age. Does it matter if a French company owns the electricity supply so long as it works?

The objects of our loyalty are increasingly chimerical – no more than "brands" in many cases, will o' the wisps compared to the solid wooden furniture of our material history.

Football is a prime example. "Give us back our Arsenal" and "Give us back our Chelsea" are the chants of fans fed up with weak performances, but where does the "our" come from? Arsenal's shareholding is divided mainly between two foreign tycoons, the American Stan Kroenke with two thirds and the Russian-Uzbek Alisher Usmanov with just short of a third. The manager is French. The players are drawn mainly from continental Europe and Africa. The stadium, the Emirates, is named after a sponsoring airline.

As for Chelsea, its owner, Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, has just fired his eighth manager in nine years, none of them English, at a total cost of £77m. Altogether he has spent around £1bn at the club: money, as Richard Williams reminded us this week, that came from plundering the natural resources that once belonged to the people of the Soviet Union and recycling it "in the form of salaries and redundancy payments that trickle down to London's car salesmen, concierges, watchmakers, estate agents, fashion designers, chefs, security guards, croupiers, interior decorators and dealers in yachts and executive jets".

It seems incredible in this context that in 1967 Glasgow Celtic won the European Cup, the first British team to do so, with 10 out of 11 players, plus the manager, born within 10 miles of Celtic's stadium (the exception's birthplace was the Ayrshire coast). The fact is now famous but it seemed unremarkable at the time. Celtic supporters could look at these men, recognise that they shared the origins and religious denomination of most of them, and justifiably think of the institution as "ours".

The team I followed, Dunfermline Athletic, took its players from a wider catchment area – Alex Ferguson, who eventually became the most famous of them, travelled all of 40 miles from Glasgow. But everything else about the club was intensely local. The town's solicitors and owners of small businesses held the shares, and the players met most days for lunch in the City Hotel, where the proprietor was the team dietician. You would see them shopping in the high street and gripping a billiard cue at Joe Maloco's snooker hall or a glass in the East Port Bar. They took the bus. One or two readers among them borrowed books from the library I worked in and stood in the queue to have them stamped. And all of this normality went on applying even after they'd won the Scottish Cup, which would be the most famous thing any of them ever did. They too could be thought of as "ours".

But Chelsea? Surely it would be hard for anyone other than Abramovich to imagine it as "ours", even in the loosest, most sentimental sense. A friend of mine supports Chelsea, though he lives nowhere close, and is affected by their results, win or lose, to a perplexing degree. The phrase "loyal fan" would describe him very well. Fandom is of course a mysterious condition, not easily understood by anyone not in its grip, but this week I thought I'd ask him how he could manage to stay so true to an old London institution now ruled by a cunning megalomaniac whose death might have been cheered by the sailors in Battleship Potemkin.

Personal tradition was at the root of his answer. As someone with little interest in football until he watched televised matches during the 1966 World Cup, he'd been taken by a friend to see Chelsea play and got hooked. It was entirely random – it might just as easily have happened with Fulham or Spurs – but he kept on going, "feeling that sense of belonging which is so much a part of being a fan, a loyalty that embraces both fellow feeling for other fans and hatred for the alien opposition, which sometimes included the referee".

There was also what he called "a moral element" of sticking with the club through thick and thin. "If Chelsea were to be relegated, as has happened in the past more than once, I'd feel they needed my support more than ever." It would be "unthinkable" to support another team: coming on for 50 years of triumphs and disasters are too deeply etched into his consciousness for him to do anything other than pick up a paper and look at the Chelsea result first. As for "moneybags Roman", the fans knew he'd brought the club success on a previously unimaginable scale and therefore directed all their anger at the managers he appointed rather than his royal self. "I'd far rather he spends his ill-gotten gains on Chelsea players and managers than on more expensive yachts," my friend said, with a heedless implication that rather surprised me: as though nothing else mattered. He supposed his loyalty was an addiction, "like alcohol". But what was he being loyal to? Perhaps something easier to feel than to touch or to see: the fellowship of the crowd.

As it is with football, so it is with the state. Not as "ours" as it used to be, hard to touch or see. "Less and less are we a nation and more and more just a captive market to be exploited," Alan Bennett writes in the introduction to his new play, People, complaining that "the diminution in magnanimity" in the state's provision has rebranded the citizen as a customer "supposedly to dignify our requirements but in effect to make us available for easier exploitation". A few weeks earlier, the writer James Meek had published in the London Review of Books a similar diagnosis of the private ownership, often foreign, of public utilities. The commodity that made water, roads and airports valuable to investors was us, the people who had no choice but to use them. "We are a human revenue stream; we are being made tenants in our own land, defined by the string of private fees we pay to exist here."

The tendency is to discount a desire for local ownership as impossible nostalgia; to portray it as a childishly simple misunderstanding of the world. We live in a globalised age, the clock can't be put back, what does it matter if a French company owns the electricity supply so long as it works? But Britain is an unusually open economy and something has gone missing: some sense of control, some texture that we can feel and think of as our own.

• Rafael Benítez believes he has support of club owner
• Chelsea have not won any of last seven League matches

Rafael Benítez believes he retains the support of the Chelsea owner, Roman Abramovich, despite seeing his team endure a third winless match under his interim management at West Ham on Saturday, though the oligarch could yet offer Avram Grant a consultative role back at the club if results continue to deteriorate.

The loss at Upton Park extended Chelsea's run without a win in the Premier League to seven matches, their worst sequence since 1995, with Abramovich understood to have been infuriated by his players' second-half capitulation. There are concerns that Benítez, who remains the subject of intense hostility from the club's fans given his long-standing ties with Liverpool, has been unable to spark an immediate upturn in the side's form with Chelsea now 10 points behind Manchester United in the title race.

While there is no great desire to instigate further upheaval within the coaching set-up following the abrupt dismissal of Roberto Di Matteo less than a fortnight ago, Chelsea will consider more changes to their staff if results do not improve swiftly. To that end the possible reappointment of Grant – who had briefly been considered as an alternative to Benítez when the board deemed Di Matteo's time to be up – in an advisory role to assist the Spaniard has been discussed by the hierarchy.

The Israeli's return to the club would represent further antagonising an increasingly disillusioned fanbase, though that he is under consideration reflects the chaos currently gripping the European champions. Grant, a personal friend of Abramovich and previously the club's director of football, had controversially replaced José Mourinho as manager in the autumn of 2007 and went on to steer the team to the League Cup and, most notably, Champions League finals only to lose them both. His contract was terminated in the wake of the European Cup defeat by Manchester United in Moscow on penalties, with Grant later claiming he had turned down the chance to revert to his former position as director of football.

The 57-year-old has remained on good terms with Abramovich since and spent time in charge at Portsmouth, West Ham and Partizan Belgrade, but is currently available and in London having delayed a trip back to his home in Tel Aviv. While Grant has not been contacted formally over any potential involvement at Chelsea, it is understood he would be willing to take up an advisory role if the club came calling, though the specifics of any such position are as yet unclear.

Benítez brought in Xavi Valero, Paco de Miguel and Bolo Zenden on his appointment 11 days ago on a seven-month contract, though Zenden, nominally his No2, is still to secure all his Uefa coaching badges and cannot enter the technical area during games. The interim manager admitted on Saturday he "cannot be 100% sure" he will see out his short-term contract the 52-year-old has called for more time to make his impact felt having benefited to date from only a handful of training sessions and three winless matches in a cluttered schedule.

Benítez has confirmed there were angry words exchanged by staff and players in the dressing room after the frustrating 3-1 reverse at Upton Park but reaffirmed his belief that he can arrest the side's slump in form. Indeed, having spoken face to face with Abramovich after his first two games in charge, against Manchester City and Fulham, and again at the club's Cobham training base last week, as well as attending a board meeting last Thursday, he is confident he still benefits from the owner's immediate support.

Benítez will hope to register a first win against Nordsjaelland in Chelsea's final Champions League group game on Wednesday, though even victory over the Danes may not be enough to force passage into the knock-out phase. Should Juventus avoid defeat against Shakhtar Donetsk, then Chelsea will be consigned to the Europa League, a reality they would still be digesting as they depart for the Fifa Club World Cup in Japan immediately after Saturday's trip to Sunderland. Both John Terry and Frank Lampard will be on that flight to Tokyo with the pair due to play some part in training on Monday as they step up their recoveries from knee and calf injuries respectively.

Kremlin appears to endorse deal that hands biggest voting share in $30bn Norilsk Nickel to Chelsea owner

Roman Abramovich has gained control of the world's biggest nickel and palladium mine after he brokered a deal forcing two other Russian billionaires to end their four-year feud over the assets.

The Chelsea football club owner now has the biggest voting stake in Norilsk Nickel, a company valued at $30bn (£18.5bn). Norilsk was one of the biggest prizes handed to insiders in the post-Soviet carve-up of Russian industry, which created a generation of oligarchs.

Vladimir Putin, who returned to the presidency in May, had said he wanted an end to a feud between two of Russia's richest men, Vladimir Potanin and Oleg Deripaska, over board control and payments to shareholders in the firm. Their deal appears to bear the stamp of the Kremlin, with the well-connected Abramovich acting as enforcer to end the dispute.

Potanin and Deripaska agreed that Abramovich would buy a 7.3% stake, in the form of treasury stock, at market price. That stake is now worth around $2bn.

The three parties will each contribute equal stakes, amounting to 22% of Norilsk, to an escrow account that will be controlled by Abramovich's investment firm, Millhouse. The move will give him the largest say over how the company is run.

"Millhouse will control the compliance with the partnership agreement while voting with this block of shares," Potanin and Deripaska said in a joint statement issued by their firms.

Abramovich, who with a fortune of $12.1bn is the 68th-richest man in the world, according to Forbes magazine, is widely viewed as having the strongest ties to the Kremlin of any Russian oligarch.

The deal cements his position as one of Putin's favourites. Now a co-owner of the FTSE 100-listed steel company Evraz, Abramovich won control of the oil firm Sibneft after its privatisation in the 1990s. He sold Sibneft in 2005 to Gazprom, the state gas export monopoly, for $13bn. Two years before that, he bought Chelsea.

The latest deal reduces the voting power of Potanin's holding company, Interros, (now 28%) and that of Deripaska's Hong Kong-listed aluminium group, Rusal, currently 25%. In return, Deripaska will get the higher dividends he has long sought. Potanin, who has controlled Norilsk since he won it in the "loans for shares" privatisation scheme he ran as a top official in the 1990s, will be chief executive.

The two sides have suspended legal proceedings. A London arbitration court had been due to open hearings into a case dating back to 2010 in which Deripaska accused Interros, Potanin's investment company, of reneging on a deal to run Norilsk in the interests of all shareholders.

Potanin and Deripaska have been locked in a shareholder dispute since Rusal bought a 25% stake in Norilsk just before the 2008 global crash, in a cash-and-stock deal worth around $14bn.

The acquisition was meant to herald a merger into an all-Russian major able to compete with global miners such as BHP, but that plan was crushed by the financial crisis.

Loss-making Rusal is now burdened by $10.7bn in net debts, a figure greater than its market capitalisation of $8.9bn. The company is also battling a fall in aluminium prices. Deripaska has resisted parting with the stake in Norilsk, now worth around $7bn, the lion's share of Rusal's equity value.

Talks to end the dispute have been on and off, but sources said in October they had resumed, fuelling speculation that a deal was in the works.

Russia's richest man, Alisher Usmanov, whose Metalloinvest owns a 4% stake in Norilsk, in the past tried to mediate between the Norilsk shareholders.

Rusal said in an earlier statement that the deal would ensure Norilsk paid stable dividends for the years 2012-14. Shareholders agreed that Norilsk would pay at least 50% of its annual net income as dividend, according to a source close to one of shareholders.

Deripaska never won a real say on the Norilsk board, instead being overruled by Potanin, who launched a series of share buybacks with the backing of company management.

Norilsk will cancel the rest of its treasury shares, amounting to about 10%. Interros and Norilsk are not to sell shares for five years, and Millhouse is not to sell for three years, the companies have agreed.

Legal tourists are making a mockery our legal system

The UK may have "entered into a double-dip recession", gushes the latest issue of Legal Business, a glossy magazine for corporate lawyers, "but the UK's top law firms continue to post record growth and trend-busting profits."

So they do. The upper end of the law is top-heavy with money. Jonathan Sumption QC earned the largest barrister's fee ever when he pocketed a reported £5m for representing Roman Abramovich in his fight with Boris Berezovsky. Profits at the richest 100 London law firms hit more than £5bn for the first time last year. The richest seven paid their partners more than £1m each.

In Tuscan second homes the chianti is flowing because oligarchs and global corporations cannot get enough of the English legal system.

Speaking last year to Clifford Chance, whose partners brought in £1.3bn in 2011, the then justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke, accepted that the legal business had "felt itself to be something of an overlooked Cinderella in its treatment by government" – an odd description to use when partners in City law firms resemble no one so much as the Ugly Sisters, but I'll let it pass. The coalition now recognised the money to be made from litigation and wanted to push English legal services into the emerging markets. "The UK may no longer be able to boast that it is the workshop of the world," Clarke declared. "But the UK can be lawyer to the world." In the 1990s and 2000s, government thought that financial services offered a future for post-industrial Britain. Now, it sees legal services as our saviour.

Ministers' ambition is embodied in the Rolls Building, which curves like a luxury liner near Fetter Lane in the City. The new home for commercial courts has none of the fustiness of the old, neogothic high court on the Strand. Opened last year at a cost of £300m, it looks like the headquarters for a fashionable tech firm: all glass and steel, and with a central atrium from where a spiral staircase twists up towards the sky.

The Ministry of Justice hopes it will help Britain become the "largest specialist centre for the resolution of financial, business and property litigation anywhere in the world" and on the face of it, there seems little to object to in that. I have many criticisms of the judiciary, but I have never entertained the notion that an English judge would take a bribe or succumb to pressure from the state. You cannot say the same of judges in Moscow, New Delhi or Beijing. The incorruptibility of the judiciary and the work ethic of the lawyers ensure that more international commercial disputes take place in London than in any other city in the world. And of course we need whatever taxes the lawyers' accountants condescend to pass to the Revenue.

"Wimbledonisation" is an ugly term business writers reach for on these occasions. Andy Murray apart, we may not have great tennis players, they say, but in commerce, as in sport, we can still host the best foreign players.

Yet there are already signs that this trend in English law will be as great a disappointment as it was in English finance. Even Abramovich's solicitors accepted that the sceptical may wonder what a dispute about the division of the loot from the old Soviet empire had to do with us.

The British taxpayer saw no direct benefit. Mrs Justice Gloster began hearing the Abramovich case on 3 October 2011. The proceedings lasted until 21 December 2011. She considered her verdict until 31 August 2012, and still has months more to spend writing her judgment.

For this service, the public purse received next to nothing. High Court and Court of Appeal users pay £1,090 for a trial hearing regardless of its length. The Ministry of Justice suggested last year that it might raise the price of High Court and Court of Appeal cases lasting more than 10 days to £10,900, but that would still not cover the costs of a fresh battle between the oligarchs and in any case nothing has been done.

Like the National Theatre and the House of Windsor, the law is subsidised by the taxpayer because it brings in the tourists, but in this instance they are the wealthiest tourists on the planet who can afford to pay their way.

Beyond the freeloading lies an existential question: who is the law for? Sitting in London, it is not too fanciful to imagine the legal system of England and Wales detaching itself from the peoples of England and Wales.

Its best lawyers no longer want to work for them, because they cannot afford their fees. Its judges cannot hear their disputes for months because they are tied up hearing the disputes of plutocrats.

As we already know, the government's cuts to legal aid mean that ministers are deliberately placing the poorest beyond the law. On matters of vital concern – housing, debt, benefit claim – they will have no access to justice.

Meanwhile, ministers tell the middle classes to settle their disputes by arbitration, which is a reasonable way for reasonable people to reach an agreement, but if one of the parties is unreasonable the middle classes still need judges and lawyers to intervene. They are becoming harder to find. A senior judge told me that he knew British corporate lawyers who had never represented a human being. Soon we will have British corporate lawyers who have never represented a British company either.

With the exception of a few judges, there is no resistance to the law's embrace of bling. After pocketing his Russian gold, Sumption was elevated from being a working barrister to a seat in the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land.

Like Peter Bazalgette, who made a fortune from broadcasting trash and has been rewarded with the chairmanship of the Arts Council, Sumption found that the modern British state celebrates the accumulation of money by whatever means necessary. The richer you are the more deserving of honours you become.

The credit crunch was so severe in Britain because the Wimbledonisation of finance ended when the crash forced all the foreign banks the government had encouraged to come to these islands to head home and take their credit for families and businesses with them.

In the legal world, it will end when the people realise that the law of the land is the law of everybody's land but theirs.

Legal gravy train gears up for another multimillion trial; Pirc takes issue with Micro Focus chief's perks; food firms get hungry

As the ink dries on the 539-page judgment handed down last week to settle the seething row between Russian tycoons Boris Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich, the British legal gravy train this week returns once more to fellow feuding oligarchs Michael Cherney and Oleg Deripaska.

Once again the dispute turns on whether past payments and disputed historic contracts amounted to one oligarch promising a slice of his empire to the other, or whether, in fact, the money flows were evidence of krysha payments – that is, protection money.

The case briefly got under way in July, when Deripaska's counsel, Tom Beazley QC, declared that Cherney was a man who had "surrounded himself with criminal characters ... they were part of his modus operandi".

The hearing resumes on Thursday and one of the first witnesses is expected to be Cherney, giving him the chance to rebut Beazley in person. Well, sort of in person. In fact, he will be giving evidence via video link. The small matter of an outstanding Interpol warrant makes travelling a difficulty.

Whatever this week brings from Court 25 of London's high court Rolls Building, it will be treble vodkas all round for the legion of advisers in attendance from law firms Quinn Emanuel and Decherts and spin doctors Bell Pottinger and Portland PR.

Shareholder group eyes Micro Focus chief's perks

Next on the pay revolt danger list is Micro Focus, one of the last big British software companies with a near £1bn market value.

Shareholder advisory group Pirc wants a vote against the re-election of executive chairman Kevin Loosemore and a thumbs down for the remuneration policy at Micro Focus's annual meeting on Wednesday.

The company's PR man points out that the share price is up 70% since Loosemore's appointment in April 2011, but Pirc feels combining the roles of chairman and chief executive gives one individual too much control. It also does not like the termination provisions in Loosemore's contract. A year's pay in lieu of notice is standard for top executives, but Loosemore is entitled to a year and a half's worth of pay – a not-to-be-sniffed-at £735,000.

Last year he took home nearly £1.3m including base salary of £490,000 and a bonus of £662,000. The annual report states that this year's bonuses will have clawback provisions, although it also says dismissal could see the boss claim "all of the bonus which would have become payable up to the date of notice being served by the company". Perhaps a pay consultant could explain.

Food firms get hungry

Food companies Compass and Domino's Pizza Group are also due to shuffle into the City canteen this week. The London-listed pizza firm that controls the Domino's franchise in the UK and Ireland is expanding fast. It bought out the Swiss franchisee at the end of August and investors are looking for news on how the integration is going.

Over at Compass, which is updating the market ahead of full-year results on 21 November, the company's already significant overseas activities seem to have insulated it from the UK's depressed economy. Panmure Gordon analysts point out that the share price has risen nearly 40% in the last 12 months, comfortably outperforming the 16% increase in the FTSE 100. Time to crack open the champagne and foie gras?

Au contraire. Compass announced last month that it had decided to remove the livers of force-fed geese from its menus. The change will have affected its smattering of upmarket eateries, including those run by Gary Rhodes, whose signature dishes had included fillet steak burgers topped with melting foie gras. But profits are unlikely to be affected, given Compass does much of its business in school and hospital canteens and is perhaps more famous for once dishing up Turkey Twizzlers.

• £18.4m paper profit helped put club on fair-play course
• Chelsea unlikely to break even in current financial year

Chelsea's much vaunted first profit of the Roman Abramovich era from their Champions League-winning year was only achieved as a result of one-off exceptional items, including a £18.4m paper profit on cancelled shares in a digital media joint venture with BSkyB.

When Chelsea unveiled their top-line figures in November, the Premier League club said the £1.4m profit was the result of their European success, a sizeable profit on transfers and improved commercial deals. Ron Gourlay, Chelsea's chief executive, said at the time the figures, which compared with a loss of £67.7m the previous season, showed the club was on course to comply with Uefa's financial fair play rules.

But the full accounts, lodged at Companies House on Wednesday, show that the profit stemmed partly from the cancellation of £15m in shares held by BSkyB in a digital media joint venture that the club took full control of and £3.4m of dividends from those shares.

Another one-off item, £4.7m in cash earmarked for payments to former managers that was clawed back when they found new employment, also boosted income (although it was offset by a one-off £1.8m charge on player registrations). Without these items, a £1.4m profit would have become a £19.9m loss.

While the figures still support the club's case that they are controlling costs and moving towards a sustainable model that would comply with Uefa's rules – wages rose by just £8m to £176m, for example – critics will claim it is disingenuous to publish the top-line figures without accompanying accounts. The accounts also show that transfer profits of £28.8m were achieved by the sales of Yury Zhirkov, Slobodan Rajkovic, Alex and Nicolas Anelka.

Since the end of the end of the accounting period to end of June 2012, the club spent £42.96m on six players and recouped just £539,000, plus a further £1.477m from former players' sell-on clauses.

So Chelsea are unlikely to break even in the current financial year, particularly as their Champions League campaign ended at the group stages. The new financial fair play rules allow clubs to lose only €45m over a three-year period, provided losses are covered by a benefactor.

Alan Shaw, Chelsea's club secretary, said in a statement published in its accounts: "The football club needs to balance success on the field together with financial imperatives of this new regime. The results recorded in this financial year put us in a good position to meet the assessment criteria for the initial periods."

Roman Abramovich is estimated to have sunk more than £1bn into the club since buying Chelsea nine years ago. Yet the accounts reveal that the Russian billionaire's huge investment does not earn him a discount on his corporate box at Stamford Bridge – it cost him £3m in 2011-12.

The news that the most coveted coach in world football has chosen to join Bayern Munich confirmed Chelsea's worst fears

There was no frustrated gnashing of teeth from those in the boardroom at Stamford Bridge as news filtered through from Munich that the most coveted coach in world football was Bavaria-bound. That might sound surprising, given that Roman Abramovich had twice recently asked Pep Guardiola to name his price to bring all that pizzazz for which his Barcelona team were renowned to this corner of south-west London.

Yet as Karl-Heinz Rummenigge did his distant jig of delight and Bayern understandably basked in quite a coup, not least for the status of the Bundesliga, Chelsea merely shrugged. How else could they react, given they had seen this coming? Admittedly they might have anticipated Guardiola popping up at Manchester City rather than in Germany, particularly with the former Barça technical director Txiki Begiristain installed as the director of football at the Etihad and the chief executive, Ferran Soriano, another to have worked at Camp Nou. But City's faith in Roberto Mancini is apparently unswerving and the Spaniard has opted for Germany. Regardless, Chelsea had feared for some time they were not an option.

Twice their hierarchy had sounded him out, in the wake of André Villas-Boas's dismissal last March and again when they resumed their search for a permanent manager after the eye-catching European Cup triumph at Bayern's expense in May. On each occasion Guardiola had made it clear he was intent on seeing out a year-long sabbatical before resuming his career – a stance he has maintained by accepting the Bayern job from 1 July – for all the millions on offer. "Bayern weren't the team which offered the most money," said the Spaniard's agent, Josep Maria Orobitg. He would not be seduced.

It was back in March and early June that Chelsea first realised they might not get their wish. Guardiola represented the ideal, a manager who had coaxed such glorious attacking football while at Barcelona and allied it with almost constant success – 13 trophies in four years – albeit while benefiting from a team that included Lionel Messi, Andrés Iniesta and Xavi Hernández, players who had been developed through the Catalans' youth system. Chelsea have had to recruit the vast majority of their best from outside. While their eagerness to lure the Spaniard to London was clear, at some stage back then the Londoners would have been fed the line, offered up to the Football Association for Wednesday's launch of its 150th anniversary celebrations, that Guardiola does want to work in the Premier League.

For now England and Chelsea will have to wait, presumably until 2016. The board will have mulled over why their advances were spurned. Perhaps working for a club that has shed seven full-time managers in eight years had put Guardiola off. How could there be any notion of a long-term project amid such constant job insecurity? Even figures within the Chelsea hierarchy have privately acknowledged the turnover in managers might put some candidates off, for all that Abramovich apparently craves a level of stability in the dugout. At least there is recognition that the upheaval of recent years has been destabilising.

But, while Chelsea had reluctantly accepted they would most likely fail in their pursuit of Abramovich's ideal candidate, they must still address what follows Rafael Benítez's interim stewardship. The Spaniard would still hope to recover enough success from a season of near-misses to earn himself consideration for the position, even if the local support will clearly never accept him in the role. Whether the club can endure the discontent that has spilled over regularly in recent weeks beyond the end of the season is doubtful.

Then there is José Mourinho, Abramovich's first appointment and the man who returned the Premier League title to Stamford Bridge before a schism with the owner that has only recently been repaired. Their relationship is stronger now – distance can heal – and it is not quite as unthinkable as it once was that the Portuguese could return. His future at Real Madrid is in doubt but, with Guardiola removed, there could be high-profile suitors for Mourinho's signature. City may insist they are happy with Mancini, even if he cannot retain the title, but will Paris St-Germain forgive Carlo Ancelotti failure to claim Ligue 1? And might there be upheaval at Manchester United or Arsenal to come?

Chelsea will really start considering their next move only once the January transfer window has closed, with approaches likely to be instigated in the summer once Benítez's deal expires. They will have a better idea of the lie of the land then but there is already admiration building for alternatives. Michael Laudrup's impact at Swansea, and status in the game, has been noted. He will be even harder to ignore if Chelsea are eliminated from the Capital One Cup at the semi-final stage at the Liberty Stadium next Wednesday. The Dane is in the first season of a two-year contract and, to date, can do no wrong.

Then there is Diego Simeone, whose Europa League winners, Atlético Madrid, so embarrassed the European champions in the Super Cup in Monaco in August; or Jürgen Klopp at Borussia Dortmund, who topped a daunting Champions League group before Christmas having held off Bayern to win successive Bundesliga titles. These are some of the names Abramovich and his advisers must now consider. They had feared for a while their interest in Guardiola would come to nothing. A search for alternatives awaits.

• Capital One Cup final would boost manager's stock
• Roman Abramovich keeping close eye on progress

Rafael Benítez met the Chelsea owner, Roman Abramovich, in the wake of Sunday's victory over Arsenal to deliver his assessment of the side's progress under his interim stewardship, with the Spaniard emerging from those discussions encouraged and intent now on forcing his side's passage to Wembley.

The London side must overturn a two-goal deficit from the first leg in Swansea on Wednesday to reach the Capital One Cup final, but the manager is drawing encouragement from a recent run of six consecutive domestic away wins, together with the home win over Arsenal.

Abramovich returned to England earlier than anticipated from a winter break in St Barts with Chelsea having stuttered, albeit largely at Stamford Bridge, in his absence. As a result he had sought to determine the lie of the land as he begins the latest process of recruiting a new permanent manager.

Benítez pointed to the statistical upturn in the team's recent form and argued his side have been unfortunate in recent home matches, not least in losing 2-0 in the first leg to Swansea despite dominating the game and creating numerous opportunities. "Without giving too many details, he was really pleased with the game [against Arsenal]," said the Spaniard. "He has ideas. I do too. We share ideas. It's fine. We explained to each other what we're trying to do. We had people who talked with him [while Abramovich was on holiday in the Caribbean] and I have the information. But the other day I had time with him and I was really pleased.

"The stats say we're scoring more goals, conceding fewer, and in the games we've lost the team have still done well. The side were in a transitional period when we came in, with some new players needing to settle down and others coming to the end of their contracts, but it's a team that's improving. Growing. As a manager, you have to be satisfied with this.

"We have to do better to win trophies, but the priority for the club is to be in the top four in May and try and win trophies at the same time. Could we do it a bit better? Yes. Could we have won the games we lost? Yes, we had the chances. But the team is growing, progressing, and if you talk with the players they say we're going in the right direction."

Abramovich returned to find the club's support still in open revolt at Benítez's appointment and the decision not to grant Frank Lampard a new contract, with the chairman Bruce Buck having been booed ahead of the first leg of the semi-final a fortnight ago.The mood has been improved somewhat by confirmation Ashley Cole, 32, has signed a new one-year contract at Stamford Bridge. "I have been able to fulfill nearly all my ambitions at Chelsea," said the England full-back. "I have won the Champions League, the league and FA Cups here, but you don't want to stop winning trophies. At a big club, you are always fighting to win a trophy."

The Capital One Cup offers Chelsea their eighth route to silverware this term but, having already been eliminated from four and effectively out of the title race, there is pressure to reach Wembley. "Swansea are the favourites at the moment, but we can do it," added Benitez. "I have spoken to the players about the first leg, analyzing the game, and we had 25 shots – a long list – and were dominant, on top of them. They had two chances because we made two mistakes, and scored them both. We know this is an opportunity. The players aren't angry, but they're professionals and winners. We have to do our best because we deserved more in the first game."

Chelsea owner will take a 23.3% stake in the mobile telecoms company, which is currently valued at £300m

Roman Abramovich has made his largest investment in a UK company since buying Chelsea football club, taking a stake in telecoms group Truphone which values the business at £300m.

Truphone's technology allows travellers in the US, the UK and Australia, to use a mobile to call, text and access the web at local rates without having to change handset or sim card.

The Russian billionaire is paying £70m for a 23.3% stake, an investment which reunites Abramovich with his principal business partner in the mining and metal group Evraz.

Evraz chairman, Alexander Abramov, held 80% of Truphone before this funding round and his stake will be diluted to about 60%. The company is led by chief executive, Steve Robertson, who created and ran BT's network division, Openreach, until 2011.

The funding will be used to double the headcount, employing 500 extra staff over the next 18 months, and expand the Truphone service to the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Germany, Spain and Poland.

"I have been a Chelsea supporter since I moved to London in 1981," said Robertson. "If we can make Truphone as successful as Chelsea I will be a very happy guy."

The investment is Abramovich's first in telecoms, but Russia's oligarchs are taking a keen interest in the sector. Mikhail Fridman holds stakes in mobile carriers including Russia's VimpelCom and Turkey's Turkcell. He sold down his stake in Alisher Usmanov's mobile venture Megafon prior to its recent London listing.

Robertson said representatives of Abramovich's asset management vehicle Millhouse had tested the service extensively before committing. The investment is being made via Minden, which is linked to Millhouse.

"They are real believers that what Truphone does and the way we are doing it can be a game-changer in the industry," said Robertson. "Their investment is an important part of allowing us to fulfil the potential of our business."

Truphone was founded six years ago by James Tagg, a British inventor who developed the touchscreens used in ticket machines on London's tube network. Tagg remains with the company as chief technology officer. The business was born when Tagg, frustrated by the poor mobile signal at his home in Kent, found a way to make mobile phone calls over the internet.

Unless José Mourinho can be tempted to return, Roman Abramovich is running out of willing, or available, candidates

Even if Rafael Benítez does limp on until May, it is becoming harder to see where Roman Abramovich goes from there. A man used to being able to secure whatever he covets is potentially running out of options. After 10 years, 10 managers and £1bn of investment, the turbulence associated with the top job at Stamford Bridge has made a post once coveted by many of the biggest names in European football into a poisoned chalice. Chelsea said yesterday it was "business as usual" as Benítez took training. That, perhaps, is the problem.

By most measures it should be an attractive proposition. Yet even the prospect of a hefty pay packet and the lure of working with some of the best players in the world has not been enough to stop some of the names highest on his wanted list removing themselves from the frame.

Despite the soothing mood music from Stamford Bridge, it is unwise to second guess anything in a court where the word of one man is king. Benítez looks likely to be in charge for Saturday's meeting with West Bromwich Albion, managed by the former Chelsea defender and assistant manager Steve Clarke, but beyond that all bets remain off. With the Spaniard just the latest "dead man walking", the Chelsea owner is left contemplating the next phase of a "project" that long since lost all coherence.

When Benítez was appointed, the prize of Pep Guardiola, long coveted for his marriage of style and silverware, still hovered tantalisingly within reach as the former Barcelona coach watched on from New York. Many speculated that by ruthlessly dispatching Roberto Di Matteo and highlighting the instability at the heart of the club, Abramovich had made west London an even less appealing destination for Guardiola. So it proved, as it emerged he had already pledged himself to Bayern Munich. Borussia Dortmund's highly rated Jürgen Klopp has also insisted he will not be lured by the Russian's siren call.

For the bookmakers José Mourinho is the clear favourite and the prospect has clear appeal, not least for fans and the media. But the dramatic return of the Special One from Madrid may create as many problems as it would solve. For better or worse, Abramovich appears wedded to a backroom model that leaves the likes of the technical director Michael Emenalo firmly in place. That would clash with a likely demand from the Portuguese for full control over football matters – the very flashpoint that ended his first successful tenure.

Mourhino knows there may be rival offers from Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain with more control and less baggage. On the other hand, those positions are not currently vacant and he may be drawn to the idea of being able to tie up his future before the end of the season.

Contrary to external impressions, there is some continuity at Chelsea. The assistant first-team coach, Steve Holland, has worked with a succession of managers and others have been there even longer. Away from the first team, the academy director Neil Bath has been on staff since well before Abramovich arrived.

The chairman, Bruce Buck, and the chief executive, Ron Gourlay, again under fire for their lack of visibility but aware whatever they say could be undermined at a stroke by their boss, would argue they are attempting to put in place a structure that can sustain personnel changes.

But it holds little water when there is so little sense to the expensive but incoherent collection of players bequeathed to the next man to take up the reins. Clubs can survive a high turnover, but only if there is a clear footballing and recruitment philosophy underpinning them. Both have been lacking at Chelsea.

Abramovich appears wedded to two paradoxical aims: to establish a structure that can withstand endless revolution, while craving the charismatic auteur who can repeat the success of Mourinho and also add a swashbuckling sense of adventure. The Russian may argue the trophy cabinet tells its own story, but the towering European triumph last May obscures diminishing returns. Of his four least successful managers, according to their win percentages, three are the most recent incumbents.

The daunting rebuilding task that was supposed to begin under André Villas-Boas, who will this weekend celebrate the anniversary of his sacking by hoping to cement the position of Spurs ahead of Chelsea in the table, has stalled. Didier Drogba is gone but not replaced and the rest of the spine of Mourinho's team has not been adequately overhauled. Questions over Frank Lampard's contract have proved an endless distraction and the squad lacks balance. A trio of exciting young players expensively signed to usher in a new era – Oscar, Eden Hazard and Juan Mata – have alternated between brilliance and bewilderment as chaos has swirled around them, while Fernando Torres increasingly resembles a lost cause.

Like other chaotic institutions, it is possible Abramovich will lurch from one extreme to the other and seek to replace a manager virulently unpopular with the fans with another who is a former hero. Gianfranco Zola would certainly tick that box. But although he has impressed at Watford, he struggled in the Premier League with West Ham.

Gus Poyet, who perhaps ranks less highly in the affections of Chelsea fans due to his stint at Spurs, is untested at the highest level but has shown himself to be a progressive young manager at Brighton. Both would be tempted by what would be a huge step up; both would be huge gambles.

But other highly rated young coaches – notably Swansea's Michael Laudrup – would now surely think twice about cashing in their rising stock to take the Abramovich shilling. David Moyes, who enjoys absolute control at Everton but is endlessly frustrated by a lack of resources, is an intriguing possibility but for him the knotty internal politics might be a deal breaker.

Chelsea have worked their way through many of the usual suspects who used to be mentioned whenever one of the bigger managerial jobs in Europe came up. But from that seam of speculation, two former Real Madrid managers – Fabio Capello and Manuel Pellegrini – might reasonably be considered. The former is in charge of Russia but has recently made noises about wanting to return to England. Pellegrini's agent said this week that the Chilean coach of Málaga would "love" to come to the Premier League and claimed Chelsea and others had been in touch to ask about his availability.

But neither would represent the new broom Abramovich would appear to crave to reshape a squad that badly needs a vision for the long term. Of course he could always go to the other extreme, take player power to its logical conclusion and install John Terry as manager.

When he was appointed, Benítez insisted the task before him was "easy when you have experience at this level: to win games, try to do it playing well, and win trophies". It's unlikely even he feels the same way now. His experience, like those who came before him, will be just the latest salutory tale to weigh on the minds of those weighing up the demands of one of football's most peculiarly challenging jobs.

'Business as usual' could not have been more apt a claim from a club where managers are tossed aside and the devious thrive

The official line from Stamford Bridge was that it was "business as usual" and presumably they did not appreciate the rich irony of that statement when television crews were lined up on the pavements and the questions, once again, were about a form of chaos and familiar sense of astonishment about the speed at which a club of Chelsea's ambitions manage to locate crisis.

For Chelsea, business as usual means a disenchanted fan-base torn between their appreciation for the glories of the Roman Abramovich era and the diminishing hope that he might refrain from simultaneously involving the club in so much that feels cheap and unpleasant.

It means another manager living in permanent insecurity, the rest of English football rubbernecking in their direction and another batch of hostile headlines as we wait for the official announcement, knowing that it may not be far away. The statement, when it comes, will be short and to the point. A couple of bland lines from one of the directors, maybe. Nothing too grand. Then back to the business of recruiting a 10th manager in nine years and buying the silence of the chap who has just left.

This is what a cherished old club has come to, operating from a ground that has witnessed so many exhilarating moments in recent years but also so many public relations disasters and where, just across the road, you will now find their £50m striker, Fernando Torres, pointed towards a job cooking burgers in the billboard one bookmaker has erected.

Brutal, you might think, but so is the fact that just inside Stamford Bridge's boundaries the huge picture that used to adorn the wall behind the West Stand, where supporters could have photographs taken beside the image of Roberto Di Matteo and his players and assorted trophies, has been replaced with another picture of the Champions League celebrations – excluding, with

some precision, the manager of the time. A small ignominy, perhaps, compared with the other indignities heaped on Di Matteo. In another sense it feels like a pretty accurate snapshot of the way the modern-day Chelsea go about their business.

Everyone knows the routine by now: appoint, marginalise, isolate and sack. Then comes the pay-off – in total, £86m so far since 2004 – and then the moments when they give the impression they would happily airbrush the last manager out of the club's history. Rafael Benítez, as a politician, might not be as clever as he would like to believe but he was smart in one respect: at least Chelsea's interim manager got his retaliation in first before the lawyers became involved.

That word again: "interim". Until a few years ago people in this position always tended to be known as the "caretaker" manager. Before it became the word of choice at Stamford Bridge, "interim" felt more like office jargon. It was the name of an album by The Fall. One thing it was not was a football term. Now it is the one word by which Benítez's short, joyless reign will be associated. "A temporary or provisional arrangement; stopgap; makeshift," is the dictionary definition. It will be there on Saturday in the match-day programme against West Bromwich Albion, just as it is for every home match. It will be on the team-sheets. It is on the letterheads of official Chelsea paper. The club could hardly have done more to promote the idea Benítez was merely passing through and it is almost bizarre that Abramovich and his nomenklatura expected the team to thrive from such a position.

Sir Alex Ferguson always said the first reason Manchester United finished third in the 2001-02 season was because the players thought he was retiring in the summer and started to think beyond him. A manager counting down the months is inevitably going to struggle to exert full authority and, when the dressing room is as hard-faced and unflinching as Chelsea's, the players were always going to look at Benítez as just a short-term measure, not even good enough to get a proper title. These are basic facts of football life. They really should not need to be explained to a club of serious ambition.

A poll on the Guardian's website has 63% of people blaming the club's hierarchy. Yet there are solid reasons, whether we like them or not, why Abramovich can make one unpopular decision after another and still be spared the crowd's hostility. Many Chelsea supporters will be dismayed by a lot of what Abramovich does. Just do not expect them to turn on the owner when there is a magnificent hulk of silverware, bearing the Uefa stamp and decorated in blue and white ribbons, residing at Stamford Bridge.

At the same time there is also gathering evidence that Chelsea is becoming the place to demonstrate how a culture of short-termism can eventually destabilise a football club. At the end of this season it will be one title in seven years. For the last two seasons they have not even challenged. The interims/managers are sent to the guillotine with such frequency that anyone worth his salt must have to think long and hard about whether he wants to work in this environment. Pep Guardiola smiled politely and decided he did not want to spend every day watching his back. Benítez, out of work and so far removed he had taken to writing an internet blog, could hardly be so fussy when, perhaps most shockingly of all, the truth is that any well-adjusted football person could have told Abramovich appointing the former Liverpool manager was the equivalent of unloading diesel into a petrol engine.

This, maybe, is what happens when a billionaire appoints men such as Bruce Buck and Ron Gourlay who tick off every demand like zombies. The regime at Stamford Bridge does not seem to realise what can happen when there is never stability or clarity, just the sense that they are stumbling along. It breeds malcontents, insecurity, selfishness, people looking after their own interests rather than the team's.

It is not an exact science but a "good dressing room" can generally be gauged by how watertight it is against the outside world. Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool all understand that and Manchester City are slowly getting there. Chelsea operate in a different way. It is a culture of leaks, strategic positioning, undermining others. Not everyone but a concerted number, nonetheless. One of the players – his identity would be a grave disappointment to Chelsea's supporters – has been behind a lot of it. Agents, staff and all manner of other people are involved. They are clever, too, eluding all sorts of investigations, and the longer that culture goes on, the more embedded it becomes. It is the English equivalent of Real Madrid, just not in a good way.

The next manager – Avram Grant, José Mourinho or whoever – has it all to sort out and, when one thinks back to that epic, wonderful night in Munich last May, it is difficult to imagine another Champions League winner has ever lurched around so miserably the following season. Chelsea have become the object lesson in how not to defend the most cherished title of them all. One interim is gone, another is on his way and the atmosphere at every match is just toxic. It is a mess and it might get worse before it can get better.