Why Benitez would be Better for Chelsea than Guardiola

Roman Abramovich has been seeking attractive football at Chelsea for years now, and he's gone to great lengths to achieve that. One of the reasons that the Russian had for sacking Mourinho, one of the best managers in the World, was that his style of football was not appealing to him, amongst his insensible signings which Mourinho disagreed with.

Ever since Guardiola announced to a press conference including various of his players on the 27th of April that he would be leaving the Nou Camp come the end of the season, the Spanish manager has been strongly linked by every source of media towards the job at Stamford Bridge, even when Di Matteo won the Champions League with the Blues, it was still expected that Guardiola would take over the reigns.

It is no secret that Abramovich would love to see Josep in the Chelsea dugout, but the Russian definitely has a limited knowledge of football - would Guardiola be the best choice?

Benitez' tenure at Chelsea seems like it is going to be a short one, with the possibility of Guardiola coming in at the end of the season a real possibility, however I believe that the ex-Liverpool manager would be a more suitable boss at Stamford Bridge than the man who has won 19 individual managerial awards, and 15 with Barcelona for multiple reasons.

Experience

Guardiola has never managed in a league other than the top Spanish flight (if you disregard the Tercera División with Barcelona B), and there are many differences between the Primera División and the Premier League. The latter is much more fast paced and generally physically demanding than the slower, and more requiring of technical ability La Liga. With Chelsea also, the matches where he will be beating teams by more than 4 goals will become much more of a rarity, as there isn't a larger gap between the top and the bottom teams in the Premiership (I know I'll probably get called out on this). Rafa Benitez on the other hand, managed Liverpool for 6 years, between 2004-2010, and has a good knowledge of the league which will definitely help him at Chelsea.

Versatility

There are no doubts that Pep Guardiola is the face of tiki-taka, and that he has been very successful with the system, however it would be interesting to see him managing with a different philosophy at Chelsea (which I believe will be necessary for reasons I will later mention) as how successful he is under a different system may show how good a manager he really is.

Benitez likes to play with a compact system which uses a zonal marking system, a high line and aggressive pressing to reduce the space in which the opposition has to play in. When in possession of the ball, he likes his team to play with quick transitions and with width in order to make the pitch as big as possible and then take advantage of space between opposition lines.

Time

When Guardiola took over at Barcelona, he had the likes of Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, and Puyol to name a few who had been brought up through La Masia and that were comfortable playing in the tiki-taka system since they had years of training centered around the philosophy. That's not to mention players like Cesc Fabregas and Pique, who had also been brought up in the tactical system, were brought in by Guardiola.

It takes years of practice to become effective under Guardiola's system, and Abramovich definitely doesn't have the patience for that no matter how much he would like to see Chelsea emulating the Blaugrana. This is why I feel that Guardiola may have to adapt his philosophy to suit the players at Stamford Bridge, if he doesn't, the team could find it difficult to replicate the fluid football of Spain and Barcelona.

Tactical Intelligence and knowledge of the system is extremely important in tiki-taka, as shown in Pedro for Barcelona. In terms of technical ability, he doesn't match the likes of Villa and Fabregas, however because of his understanding of the system, he is very effective in the system and performs well enough to maintain his position in the squad.

The Chelsea players would be suited straight away to Benitez' philosophy though, as they have played in similar systems through previous managers at the Stamford Bridge. The ex-Liverpool manager also needs time however, as he likes to build his teams from the back as I talked about in a previous article, however the effect of this will be much less as the system will be easier and quicker to adapt to for the players.

What we might see if Guardiola takes over at the end of the season is a slow development of the tiki-taka system, similar to how Martinez started the development of Swansea's fluid football which has progressed over time to what we now see under Laudrup. If Pep takes this option, it would be very interesting to watch and would be subject to intensive analysis, as we would be able to see things such as the foundation of tiki-taka and how to build it up.

Fernando Torres

A much talked about topic following the appointment of Benitez has been how Fernando Torres might play under the new manager, as Rafa is the most likely person to bring back the Torres of Liverpool.

Whilst under Benitez the Spanish striker netted 72 goals in 116 games, at an impressive rate of 1 goal every 1.6 games, roughly 24 goals a season. Since his departure however, he has managed only 28 goals in 112 matches, a goal every 4 matches, or 9.5 goals per season.

Since Torres is needed to be a big source of goals, it is vital that they get him hitting the back of the net on a consistent basis and the man to do this is Benitez if anyone, so the ex-Liverpool boss may be a better choice than Guardiola despite the likelyhood that Pep will be in charge come the start of next season.

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