Andre Villas-Boas has revealed that Chelsea’s failure to sign Luka Modric from Tottenham left Roman Abramovich ‘p****d off’.
Villas-Boas was sacked by Chelsea after just eight months in charge having guided the team to just 19 wins in 40 matches.
But the 44-year-old believes his stint at Stamford Bridge would’ve been different had Chelsea landed Modric or his alternative target Joao Moutinho, who was playing for Porto at the time.
However, Chelsea were unable to prise Modric away from Tottenham and the Croatia international went on to join Real Madrid just a few months after Villas-Boas’ departure.
‘Of course, we missed the [Luka] Modric deal at the beginning of the season,’ Villas-Boas told .
‘If the Modric deal was not to be done there was the [Joao] Moutinho deal to be done. That was the promise of Roman at that time.
‘Moutinho joined the Premier League years and years after I tried – proposing to both and Tottenham – and everybody has seen the player that he is.
‘So that denial of him was a failure that you can’t [blame on] a coach. I thought that we had the Modric deal done and he ended up in the season after. Then the Moutinho deal was to be done with Porto but the problem was the deal [for Chelsea] for the left-back of Porto, Alvaro Pereira, fell through.
‘Roman felt p****d off. So, no Modric, no Moutinho, [Radamel] Falcao is another one that was about to come in but then you had [Didier] Drogba who couldn’t decide whether he wanted to leave or not in January. He was about to go to Shanghai, then he isn’t any more and then Marina [Granovskaia] she wanted Carlos Tevez and suddenly she doesn’t want Tevez any more.
‘So, you know, managements and mismanagements that are typical within that organisation.
‘But Marina evolved to one of the greatest CEOs at that time [at Chelsea]. I am nothing compared to what she has achieved. There are a lot of things about that season that deserve one of those shocking autobiographies in England that reaches number one in WH Smith!’
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