If Roman Abramovich had the instincts of Simon Cowell – a prospect almost too terrible to contemplate, given the combination of ruthlessness and schmaltz it would unleash – Roberto Di Matteo would be installed immediately as Chelsea manager.

And then the fun would really start.

It would be a hugely popular move among Chelsea fans, and be approved by a misguided majority of football’s chattering classes. Di Matteo has lost only one of his first 13 games, and is definitely “one of us”. Dennis Wise would be kept under house arrest, to avoid offending impressionable neutrals, but Ray Wilkins would doubtless be wheeled on to congratulate “a very nice young man”.

The honeymoon period would be shrill and carefree, even if Barcelona exact appropriate revenge for the indignities endured at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday night. Di Matteo would be excused that setback if Liverpool are beaten in the FA Cup final. He’d just have to win the Champions League next season.

Bye bye, love. Hello reality.

A club like Chelsea, with pretensions to belong to the European elite, cannot be run on approval ratings. Bridge’s Got Talent might have a ring to it, but if Abramovich is swayed by sentiment, it will be the latest in a line of grotesquely expensive errors. He needs to offer the job to one of the big boys, such as Laurent Blanc or Joachim Low, once their respective Euro 2012 campaigns with France and Germany are complete.

That’s not to diminish Di Matteo’s impact, or the professionalism of familiar figures like Frank Lampard. But caretaker managers are products of circumstance and good fortune. They rarely have the substance to drive through regime change.

If Di Matteo does get the job, it will be a reaffirmation of the culture André Villas-Boas was employed to dismantle. The Portuguese might have been effortlessly airbrushed from Chelsea’s history, but his failure was not entirely self-inflicted. It highlighted fundamental issues which have yet to be addressed.

Keeping Di Matteo would give credence to whispered suggestions that John Terry is increasingly confident of fulfilling his long-term ambition, to manage the club he defines, for good or ill. Chelsea would remain in a time warp. That can’t be allowed to happen.

Can it?

Didier Drogba and his Mr Ten Percent are counting down the days with the relish of a child who can’t wait for Father Christmas to arrive. Only 73 more sleeps until he is a free agent, and Chelsea have to decide whether to pay exorbitantly for his loyalty. If they don’t – and they probably won’t – someone will.

It might appear strange to focus on the future, when the present, in the form of Chelsea’s Champions League semi-final against Barcelona, is so alluring. But that is to underestimate the mercenary mentality of the modern footballer. This will be Drogba’s last contract, his final opportunity to shake the money tree down to its roots.

The shameless option would be take the obscene sums being offered to join Chelsea outcast Nicolas Anelka at Shanghai Shenhua. Anelka is trousering the thick end of £9million a year for acting as player-manager in a startlingly mediocre team. Since Jean Tigana insists he is still the manager, you can insert your own jokes about asylums, and inmates, here.

The sensational option would be to explore the chances of ending his career on a high, at Manchester United. That is not as daft as it sounds. It would suit Drogba’s theatrical nature, and his sense of style. He may be high maintenance, but Sir Alex Ferguson has an affinity with players who dare to be different.

Drogba doesn’t fit United’s age profile. He can be a preening ninny. Yet, as he proved in the FA Cup semi-final, when he scored his seventh Wembley goal in as many games, he is a big occasion player. He would not hide in the corner when the ghosts of Old Trafford come calling. He’d pass the Cantona test. He’d look out at the empty stadium, imagine the club’s heritage, and relish the challenge.

OK, he’s 34, a senior citizen. But United don’t have a better player of his type, and Danny Welbeck would learn a lot from watching him work. Will it happen? To be honest, I’m not holding my breath. Money has a habit of making itself heard in such situations. But wouldn’t it be fascinating if it did?

In a week dominated by the porn stars of the European game, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, English football has its curlers in, and is resplendent in a polyester nightie. It is dowdy and unadventurous by comparison, no matter how striking the make-up applied by those who insist the duel between Manchester United and Manchester City confirms the status of ‘the greatest league in the world’.

Not so fast, boys.

The pivotal figure in Man City’s Premier League revival, Carlos Tevez, spent four months playing golf. The key individuals in Man Utd’s pursuit of a 20th title have been Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes. They remain footballers of towering quality, remarkable longevity, and, in a domestic context, are unplayable. It is once the passports come out that perspective emerges.

City imploded in Europe, where they were exposed as naïve and ponderous. United’s European season has been tainted by complacency and mediocrity. Being beaten by Basle – who in turn lost 7-0 to Bayern Munich (remember them, Carlos?) – was an avoidable embarrassment.

The convenience of United being swept aside by Athletic Bilbao in the ill-considered Europa League should not detract from its significance. Athletic are La Liga’s most Anglophile club. It has a vibrant culture, which marries local pride and a belief in youth that will strike a chord at Old Trafford.

The Basque fans are fierce, yet welcoming. They’d better enjoy folk heroes like Fernando Llorente, Iker Muniain, Javi Martinez and Oscar De Marcos while they can. Economics suggest they will be sold, to fund the next generation. City and United will probably go through the San Mames like a fox in a henhouse.

Their legacy will hopefully be the Europa League, in which they face Sporting Lisbon in the semi-final. If they do not win that, Athletic will be denied the platform they have used so well. They are seventh in La Liga, outside the European qualifying places, but I’d bet on them to beat anyone in the Premier League.

Bear that in mind when the Barcelona love-fest gathers in intensity before tomorrow’s Champions League tie at Chelsea. They may be trailing clouds of glory, but in terms of Spanish football, they are not the only game in town.

It’s quiet out there, Carruthers. Too damn quiet. Newcastle United, and the foot soldiers of the Toon Army, are enjoying the luxury of taking a breath in the last frenzied strides of the race for a Champions League qualifying place. It’s football, but not as they know it, in the north east.

Newcastle are midway through a 12-day lull, the product of a quirk in the Premier League’s computerised fixture list. They do not play until Saturday, when Stoke City bring their hammer throwers to what everyone still refers to as St James’ Park. Alan Pardew has taken full advantage, assessing the physical and psychological health of the players he has moulded into the season’s surprise package.

In other years, different times, the hope generated by five successive wins at the sharp end of a season would have mutated into hysteria. No club or set of supporters does theatrical optimism so convincingly. Pick your stereotype – bald, bulky and shirtless, or young, tearful and innocent – and Newcastle have a fan to suit.

Suddenly, you can’t move for folk heroes. Demba Ba, a sensation before he was spirited away to Senegal’s comically inept attempt to win the African Cup of Nations, has disregarded football’s fundamental law, and declined to look after number one.

He has been moved out to the left of a fluid attack and supplanted by his compatriot Papiss Cissé, who has quickly recognised the sacred nature of the number nine shirt on his back. Feed him curried goat in the staff canteen at Newcastle’s training ground and he will score.

Cissé’s ten goals in eight starts have confirmed Graham Carr’s mythical status. Newcastle’s chief scout is popularly regarded as a cross between Yoda and Mystic Meg. That’s some transformation for a man whose trade is usually conducted way below the radar.

His recruitment policy, best illustrated by the successes of Cheick Tioté, Yohan Cabaye and Hatem Ben Arfa, is informed by his Geordie heritage. He uses the atmosphere created by the Newcastle fans as a major selling point. We’ve moved on from the days when Kevin Keegan was King of Comedy, but passion remains convertible currency.

Can Newcastle make the Champions League? To paraphrase their mediocre Messiah: I’d love it, absolutely love it. I’m fed up with the likes of Chelsea taking it for granted.

The Scottish Premier League is football’s equivalent of a modern high street, pockmarked by charity shops and boarded-up buildings. When someone as shrewd as David Moyes goes bargain hunting in this age of austerity, he picks up Nikica Jelavic, and sufficient goals to win Everton the FA Cup.

Moyes’ trips to his homeland are not entirely self-serving – he and five other managers, including Kenny Dalglish, are overseeing a coaching masterclass at Hampden Park next Monday – but they suit a man of his means. Everton may not be beggars, but in today’s inflated transfer market, they must choose with certainty.

In the words of one senior figure at Goodison Park, Everton cannot afford “a Manchester City mistake” when money is tight. The plight of Glasgow Rangers, and the potential of a player Moyes likens to Davor Suker, Croatia’s record goalscorer, was the perfect match.

Everton are, to quote that classic red-top headline (which some say was, ahem, borrowed from a terrace anthem) following the Jelavic Road to Wembley. Five goals since his £5.5million move, on January’s transfer deadline day, have a neat statistical symmetry, and underline his threat.

Strikers carry their own health warning. Many Premier League imports make fast starts, before grinding down through the gears without bothering to engage the clutch. Questions about character and ambition tend to be framed with disconcerting speed. Yet, according to Slaven Bilic, Croatia’s manager, Everton have no need to concern themselves.

Bilic might not be the best advocate, given that he played only 28 games for Everton in three fractious years before accepting a £1million pay-off, but he regards Jelavic as a pivotal member of his Euro 2012 squad. He trusts his touch, admires his awareness, and positively swoons over the precision of his movement in the penalty box.

Jelavic is likely to feature as a lone striker at Wembley. His ability to hold the ball up, and bring attacking midfielders into play, will be essential. The refined nature of his finishing – he passes the ball into the net, in the style of Michael Owen and Robbie Fowler – will be ominously familiar to Liverpool fans.

The lack of a natural goalscorer has been the bugbear of recent Everton teams, and Jelavic has had the desired catalytic effect. The blue half of Glasgow’s loss has been the blue half of Merseyside’s gain

A film script of Harry Redknapp’s life would be rejected as overwrought fantasy. It veers from high drama to low comedy, from substantial achievement to unedifying controversy. Even one of the state occasions of English football, Tottenham’s FA Cup semi final against Chelsea, is relegated to the status of an afterthought.

Take a snapshot of events, over the last 10 weeks or so. Redknapp has been acquitted of tax evasion charges in a long-running court case that featured, as its cause célèbre, his dead dog. The Tottenham manager painted his own self-portrait, as an artless, barely literate individual who finds certainty only in the game’s rhythms and rituals.

He is rather good at his job, though you would struggle to mount a convincing case on the evidence of a blizzard of negative headlines, prompted by Tottenham’s run of only one win in eight matches. The problem is the rampaging elephant in the room, the assumption he will become England’s next full-time manager.

Mention his name to the FA, who have had an awful week because of the pitiful nature of their disciplinary process, and they behave like a cross between a Victorian spinster and a corporate lawyer. Negotiations for his release from his Tottenham contract will be hard enough, even without an association with sudden decline.

Redknapp, who underwent surgery to unblock coronary arteries as recently as last November, insists he doesn’t do distractions, which helps. But those around him do. Football has an aversion to uncertainty. Players – and more pertinently their agents – require reassurance about a manager’s plans, and the fate of his coaching staff. Any ambiguity has far-reaching consequences when players of the calibre of Gareth Bale and Luka Modric are global commodities.

Spurs are at a pivotal stage of their strategic development. A new stadium is on the horizon. Champions League football is an essential element of the financial package. Instead of disputing third place with Arsenal, they are in a dogfight for the final qualifying position. Questions over the collective mentality of Tottenham’s squad come at a very heavy price.

Winning the FA Cup for the ninth time in their history would add clarity and momentum to Redknapp’s reign. It’s time for him to put up, if only to make the rest of us shut up. The longer he leaves it, before pledging his future to Spurs, the worse the fall out will become.

Rio Ferdinand felt the presence of Father Time lurking in the shadows with all the menace of a midnight mugger. Sir Alex Ferguson had reminded him he was getting on a bit. In true Manchester United tradition, he was obliged to adapt, or die.

Football is, and will always be, a young man’s game. Yet Ferdinand’s response to a classic psychological and physical challenge has highlighted the value of experience. With Manchester United’s 20th title a formality – the lap of honour begins at Wigan tonight – he can resume unfinished business at international level.

Fabio Capello’s decision to discard him as England captain, in favour of John Terry, was symptomatic of the Italian art collector’s artless approach to man management. Ferdinand’s consistency of fitness, and purpose, robs it of its only justification. The leadership qualities demonstrated at the business end of Manchester United’s season suggest he should reclaim the armband at Euro 2012.

At the age of 33 he would represent a practical, short-term solution to a recurring problem. He’s not the future, but that’s not the point. He’s been there, done it, and told everyone about it on his Twitter account. He may have played only once for England in the last 15 months, but he knows the territory.

Terry, his potential partner, will be mortified at the prospect, but will just have to man up, to use one of his favourite phrases. Relations between them remain complicated, given the unresolved allegations of racial abuse endured by Anton, Rio’s younger brother, but the conventions of professionalism should endure.

Is Ferdinand worth his place, given the claims of his United team-mates, Phil Jones and Chris Smalling? The jury may be out, but he has certainly disproved the theory about old dogs and new tricks. He has factored in an increasing lack of pace, playing intelligently alongside Jonny Evans, another who has responded to Sir Alex’s strictures. He plays a little deeper, to give himself a fractional advantage, and trusts his positional sense.

He insists that he has no desire to replace Terry as captain, but Ferguson believes he has at least another season at the highest level. There is plenty of time to enjoy a Beckham-esque sinecure in the States – Ferdinand is a man for the here and now.

The mob is on the march. They’ve grabbed pitchforks and flaming torches, and are heading in Mario Balotelli’s direction. Someone, somewhere, is going to be the scapegoat for Manchester City’s implosion. It might as well be him.

He’s just too convenient a target. Overpaid and overindulged? Check. Eccentric beyond reason? You bet. Flawed genius? That’s stretching a point, but we’ll accept it for the sake of argument. Balotelli is vulnerable because he is the most visible inhabitant of Manchester City’s hall of mirrors.

His lifestyle routinely distorts reality, but nothing can disguise the pivotal flaw in the City project. They have fallen short because of a lack of collective will, an absence of moral authority, and an obsession with the power of the individual.

And if we must blame someone – it’s not big, not clever, but it is the modern way – then let it be Roberto Mancini.

He’s the manager who has failed to manage, the motivator who has alienated rather than inspired. He’s the supposed strongman who weakens under pressure, the clothes horse whose reputation has frayed as fast as his temper.

His inflexibility has proved a curse in Europe, where his complaints about a lack of depth in his squad have rung particularly hollow. He has overplayed David Silva and underutilised Adam Johnson. He has overworked Yaya Touré and underestimated the worth of yeoman players like James Milner, Gareth Barry, Joe Hart and Joleon Lescott.

There was nothing particularly noble about Mancini hanging Balotelli out to dry at the Emirates on Sunday, when he reacted to defeat with the bitterness of a scorned lover. Life is not about to get any easier: I will be amazed if the rumours linking Sergio Aguero to Real Madrid are not amplified during the dog days of this season.

Ultimately, though, Mancini has flunked the pivotal test of his trade: Sir Alex Ferguson makes him look like a beginner. The old rascal would have won the Premier League at a canter with City’s current group. The Italian lacks his subtlety of selection, and ability to impose his will on a disparate group of young multi-millionaires.

City will win the title, and soon. But Mancini will not – cannot – be the one to oversee it.

What is the link between Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, an ancient martial art, and the best British coach you’ve never heard of? It’s quite literally a no-brainer, and is potent enough to underpin the dream Champions League final between Barcelona and Real Madrid.

The Japanese have a word for it: ‘Mugen’, the art of excelling without apparent thought. Alhough statistics may tell the story of record-breaking seasons, the success of Messi and Ronaldo – and by extension, Barca and Real – owes more to art than science.

That’s where British coach Roger Spry comes in. He’s a former fringe player at Wolves, whose most high-profile job in England was at Aston Villa, under Dr Jozef Venglos in 1990-91. He has worked with the Brazilian national team and such far-sighted coaches as José Mourinho, Arsène Wenger, Carlos Quieroz, Sir Bobby Robson, Mario Zagallo and Carlos Alberto Parreira.

His methods are based on Capoeira, a ‘fight-dance’ martial art developed initially by African slaves, transported to Brazil by Portuguese traders in the 19th century. The integral elements – surprise, instinct and anticipation – form the basis of an alternative football theory.

As boys, Messi and Ronaldo were both taught to read their opponents’ initial movement in response to a feint of their own. They were coached to respond immediately by switching direction. They never ran in straight lines, and became impossible to predict.

Spry explains: “Everything that Cristiano and Messi do is based on the principle of ‘a calm moment’. They throw a primary shape to see how you will react, and go the opposite way. They’re very difficult to read because they never do the same thing twice. Their peripheral vision is incredible, and their technique never lets them down. They create order out of apparent chaos.

“In England we are brought up to believe that football is about work. It is a permanent battle. To these guys it is fun, joy, happiness. It’s spiritual. These boys do things with the ball that make you drool, but what do we learn from that?”

Nothing.

Spry, who currently trains the Austrian national team and works for UEFA as a coach educator, lives close to the new National Football Centre, St George’s Park, in Burton on Trent. He’d be a bold, left-field choice for the key role of the FA’s technical director.

He hasn’t got a prayer of getting the job, of course. That tells you everything you need to know.

Legends do not normally get the chance to write their own epitaph. Fate allowed Barry Kitchener that privilege, as he sat in the lounge of his home on the outskirts of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, in early February. Sadly, Millwall’s working class hero was unaware of it at the time.

It was a crisp winter’s day, cold and sunny. Two footballs, which he used to kick around with his grandchildren, had rolled beneath a trampoline in the back garden. He was at ease with himself, even if his gentleness belied the nature of his reputation, as Millwall’s fabled enforcer.

We spoke of the intimacy of his form of fame. A succession of Millwall fans, young or young in spirit, had turned his seafront shop into a point of pilgrimage. They were respectful, occasionally awestruck. Each was given the luxury of his time. Kitchener posed for photographs, and listened to cherished memories, which tended to involve him intimidating an opposition centre forward.

“I feel privileged I mean something to people” he said, quietly. “I didn’t shirk a tackle. I threw my body on the line. I gave everything for the shirt, the club, and the fans.” Neither of us understood the resonance of his words. It was to be his last interview.

Kitch, who made a record 602 appearances for Millwall, looked grey and drawn when we next met, at a game 10 days later. I had no idea he was suffering from a particularly aggressive form of cancer. He died, aged 64, last Friday night. The minute’s applause for him, at next Saturday’s home game against Hull City, will register on the Richter Scale.

Sir Bobby Robson once told him he would have played for England, but for Millwall’s earthy reputation. That meant a lot to a player who embodied the unfashionable virtues of loyalty and unflinching honesty. To its detriment, football will probably never see his like again.

Kitch was hard, yet humble. John Donovan, a Millwall fan exiled in Canada, relived a night game against Aston Villa at the old Den. It will strike a chord with anyone who mourns the game’s lost spirit.

“Villa had a reputation of being bullies. They had a long-haired centre forward named Keith Leonard, who had scored a few goals. Kitch had him in his pocket and at one point Leonard took a dive, looking for a penalty. Kitch stomped over to him, growled something to him, and ground his hair into the pitch with his boot. Enough said – never heard another peep from him.”

Real Wall, as they say down Bermondsey way. It is the highest form of praise, and fully deserved. Kitch, RIP