Morning:
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A while ago, I described Avram Grant's default expression as that of a Mossad agent who has returned home early from an exhausting day's spying to catch his wife in bed with Mordechai Vanunu.
But that was when all was going well for the Israeli. Since that feckless Carling Cup Final defeat to Tottenham, the Grant fizzog has suggested that same agent finding her in flagrante with not just the nuclear whisteblower, but also President Ahmadinejad, of Iran. If Chelsea cannot beat Olympiacos on Wednesday, you can chuck the entire Hamas high command and Osama Bin Laden into an already jawdropping extramarital equation.
Before charitable readers rush down to the Conran Shop to inspect the queensize beds, such a failure is about as far fetched as the prospect of demoralised Arsenal overcoming AC Milan in Italy from the same disadvantage (0-0 in the home leg) as Olympiacos.
Without forgetting the old Homeric warning "Beware Greeks bearing pennants" (I translate loosely), Chelsea remain formidable at Stamford Bridge, and buoyed by Saturday's facile crushing of West Ham they should be too strong for the plucky little olive pickers.
With the team poised to reach the Champions League quarter-finals and the semis of the FA Cup, and now looking like Manchester United's strongest title challengers (Arsenal can't quite be written off yet, but are clearly going backwards), the bare facts ridicule the notion that Grant faces a crisis. But the security of a 'Big Four' manager these days is hardly about bare facts. It is about perception and expectation. On these criteria Grant is in trouble, as last week's babyish rant about the media inadvertently made plain.
If the perception of him is that of Roman Abramovich's placeman chum whose coaching has been usurped by his deputy Henk ten "Kiss Me" Cate, and whose team selections can be countermanded at will, the expectation is that he will be booted back upstairs in the summer in favour of a major global figure such as Kiss Me's old Barca guv'nor Frank Rijkaard or that other feted Dutchman Guus Hiddink.
Maybe this is simply the craving to add a new page (No11) to the Compendium of Great Jewish Sporting Figures, but I hope he defies that prediction by winning the Champions League or the title, or both. There is something strangely endearing about a man who makes Blakey from the On The Buses look like the lovechild of Fern Britton and Kris Akabusi after a near-fatal overdose of laughing gas.
The fun-loving followers of Chelsea remain loyal to the ghost of Jose Mourinho, however, and do not share this affection. You cannot imagine them borrowing from The Monkees to add 'Cheer Up Avram Grant' to their catalogue of scintillating chants.
Grant would have been ideal in the dreary days of John Hollins, Ian Porterfield and David Webb, when stolid competence was beyond the Shed's most deluded fantasies. Today, the post of Chelsea manager demands a grander, more charismatic soul.
As the caretaker who stepped in to mop up the chaos and wipe the post- Mourinho blood off the walls, Grant has done well enough to remind me of the cinematic classics teacher who keeps the school ticking over when appointed wartime headmaster; but is restored to his natural backroom role the instant peace is announced.
In the casting of football folk as filmic icons, then, Grant is Mr Chips. His chips are exactly what this endearing curmudgeon appears to have had, alas, and it's almost time to say goodbye.
