Where next for Granovskaia, Chelsea's queen of change?

You could argue that Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea are permanently in transition. A football club that cites the carousel sacking of its managers as a reason for its success must accustom itself to frequent change.

Chelsea 2018, however, is in a radical state of flux.

In Antonio Conte the club has a Premier League title winning manager, who – like every other title winning manager Abramovich has ever employed – is in conflict with the club. Conte, according to friends, wants out of Stamford Bridge, and wants his exit to come in the form of a sacking coupled with a lucrative pay off. The Italian has no intention of resigning.

In Thibaut Courtois and Eden Hazard the club has the cornerstones of its defence and attack stalling on accepting lucrative offers to commit their futures to Chelsea. Financial terms are not the issue; both Belgians are trying to work out if the summer will present them with more attractive offers of employment elsewhere.

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At Chelsea’s Surrey training complex there is an empty office, awaiting the appointment of a new technical director. Michael Emenalo handed back the keys three months ago, electing to switch his lightning rod role in the Abramovich hierarchy for the calmer weathers at AS Monaco.

Near the centre of this maelstrom stands Marina Granovskaia. An Abramovich employee for over two decades, the Russian-Canadian has formally represented the billionaire within Chelsea since 2010. Granovskaia was elevated to the plc board in 2013, but has been regarded by industry insiders as the club’s de facto chief executive when it comes to football matters for the best part of a decade.

In January 2011, Granovskaia was directly involved in the then-domestic record transfer of Fernando Torres from Liverpool. A few months later the club took legal action to shut down reports by two national newspapers that Abramovich was readying to appoint his former personal assistant as chief executive.

While Ron Gourlay nominally retained that position until his 2014 resignation, the title of CEO remained unassigned until this month’s appointment of telecommunications and media industry specialist Guy Laurence. The club’s own announcement made no mention of Laurence taking on core football-related responsibilities. “He will be working with the owner and the Board to increase our commercial revenues and maximise digital opportunities, identifying new ways to best serve our supporters here in the UK and further grow our international fan base,” said chairman Bruce Buck.

Intelligent and capable, Granovskaia “is mainly responsible for player transactions”, according to the club’s official profile. Like Abramovich, she does not grant interviews, yet has allowed her image to become increasingly associated with Chelsea’s recruitment decisions, appearing in a series of contract signing photographs.

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In tandem with Emenalo, she has converted Chelsea from a club that directed immense sums to poor purchases such as that of Torres, to one that operates one of the most extensive player buying, loaning and selling operations in world football. Chelsea still commit large figures to transfer fees (€236m in the last summer window, according to CIES Football Observatory figures), yet tend to keep their net expenditure relatively low by selling a range of talent (from leading goalscorer Diego Costa down to Saudi Arabia midfielder Mukhtar Ali).

Following his Granovskaia-approved elevation to technical director, Emenalo hired the well-regarded Scott McLachlan to overhaul Chelsea’s scouting department. So large is the club’s stable of loanees – over 30 younger professionals at present – that much of that department’s work involves monitoring their performance and development while on loan. As few ever establish themselves in Chelsea’s senior squad, the principal aim is to maximise income on their eventual sale.

While profitable for the club and valued by the owner, Granovskaia’s methods have brought her into conflict with a series of managers. Carlo Ancelotti was sacked one year after winning the Premier League title. Roberto Di Matteo less than six months after winning the Champions League. Jose Mourinho made it to the December after his third title win at Chelsea. According to friends, Conte would have welcomed the sack after his own Premier League success, and subsequently regretted not walking out.

The common theme with every one of the Abramovich era’s most successful managers has been conflict with the club over recruits. Every one has seen recruitment requests rejected. Every one has been advised to promote from Chelsea’s prodigiously funded academy.

With Emenalo departed of his own volition to Monaco’s tax-free salary, the January window left Granovskaia more exposed as the face of Chelsea recruitment than ever before. Emenalo had long served as the target for supporter discontent at club’s decision making over which the former Nigeria international possessed limited control.

Conte steadily upped the ante, pushing Granovskaia to deliver – after three windows’ worth of frustration – players he considered essential to a serious challenge to win the Champions League, before publicly announcing his discontent at the squad he is expected to work with. “I think I’m a bit of a disaster to convince the club to buy players,” announced Conte this month. “I think in this aspect I can improve a lot.”

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Granvoskaia, it is said, will not miss the Italian when he leaves Stamford Bridge (the main conflict now is over Conte’s insistence that he will not forsake a pay off by quitting). There is an awareness, though, that Chelsea’s transfer operations may require more than just a like-for-like replacement for Emenalo; they may require an overhaul.

Fee and salary inflation has aggressively increased the cost of pursuing Chelsea’s buy-loan-sell model. The number of domestic and continental rivals prepared to outbid them on elite-player recruitment has steadily grown. Few would argue that their current squad is an improvement on the one that won last year’s title while being unencumbered by European competition. Both their most important forward – Hazard – and the most important component of their defence – Courtois – have yet to be convinced to commit their futures to the club.

It is understood that Granovskaia intends to retain control of contract and transfer negotiations, but has been looking to hire an individual to head up talent identification. Monaco’s recent success identifying the best young South American and European talent to create a team that wrestled the French title from Paris Saint-Germain while generating huge profit on player sales did not go unnoticed. Monaco’s former technical director Luis Campos has been interviewed as an Emenalo replacement.

A new coach. A new head of recruitment. New contracts for key players. And the gargantuan cost of rebuilding Stamford Bridge. The Premier League’s club of constant transition has no shortage of change to manage at present.