In the span on 24 hours Chelsea have went from a club favored to progress to the knockout stages of the Champions League to a club with a new manager. Roberto Di Matteo is out and Rafa Benitez is the new manager of Chelsea. Here are four reasons why Rafa Benitez isn’t a good fit for Chelsea:

1) Chelsea fans don’t like him – At the end of the day (for most clubs) it’s the fans who pay the bills and Chelsea would not be where they are today without their fan support around the world. This is what Benitez had to say about Chelsea fans as the manager of Liverpool in 2007:

“We don’t need to give away stupid plastic flags to our fans to wave, our supporters are always there with their hearts and that is all we need. Its the passion of the fans that helps us to win matches, not flags. Chelsea fans lack passion.”

Chelsea fans will never let him forget that he said this and I hope a member of the media has the courage to ask him about this statement.

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2) Chelsea legends don’t respect him-Liverpool and Chelsea had a lot of very difficult matches in the middle part of the 2000’s and Benitez sometimes only added fuel to the fire. He said the following about Chelsea legend Didier Drogba back in 2008:

“With Drogba it’s important to have a good referee. You can’t do anything (to stop him going down), but I will say it because it was so clear. He is amazing because he is massive (yet he goes down). It’s very impressive. I have a lot of clips of him from over the years and he surprises me. After four years I expected it. It’s very impressive.”

Drogba responsed…

“Benitez was a manager I respected a lot. Until now, I found him not only very competent but also classy. But he has really disappointed me here. His words demonstrate a weakness. A top manager would never go so low to attack a player. Maybe he should concentrate on his own team’s game and if he wants me to stay on my feet, maybe he should tell his defenders to stop hitting me. In the first leg, Carragher and the other one (Skrtel) didn’t stop. And not just with me. I finished the match with bruises everywhere. Last year, I broke a rib against Liverpool in the Champions League semi-final. Strangely, that escapes the statistics of Benitez.”

Way to get the legends on your side, Rafa.

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3) His recent managerial record is simply not good – Honestly the first two points would mean nothing if Benitez could win games. Winning solves almost every problem in sports. However, Benitez is coming off of runs as a very poor manager at not one but two clubs.

• In his last 21 games in charge of Liverpool the club won only 11 games (52% win percentage) and suffered 6 defeats.
• In his 25 games in charge at Inter the club won only 12 games (48% win percentage) and suffered 7 defeats.
• After Benitez was sacked by Inter, the club won 22 of their last 32 games (69% win percentage) and suffered only 7 defeats. Yes, When Rafa left Inter the club won 21% more of their games that season.

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4) Lack of recent managerial experience – Benitez hasn’t managed a full game in almost two years, a 3-0 defeat for Inter at the hands of Werder Bremen. Managers have come out of long retirements and have been successful, but Benitez hasn’t even been around the game, working as a pundit / blogger in the Middle East. It’s going to take some time and patience for him to “shake the rust off” of his managerial skills and get back into the day-to-day life of being a manager – unfortunately time and patience are the last things Chelsea has.

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In short, the appointment of Benitez is a puzzling one to fans and media all around the world. After two “falling out” scenarios with major clubs in Europe his managerial appeal was very low for the remaining major clubs throughout the continent. Usually the “unwanted” are given that title for a reason and it’s baffling to see Chelsea remove a manager who had won the Champions League only 6 months ago for a manager with a checkered past (especially surrounding the club hiring him) who has been completely away from the game for two years.