CHENNAI : It’s done. The curtains have closed on John Gregory’s reign as Chennaiyin FC manager.
The final confirmation came via a brief statement from the club, curiously at 5 am on Saturday morning. “The club would like to sincerely thank John for his services,” read a joint-statement from Chennaiyin co-owners (Abhishek Bachchan, Vita Dani and MS Dhoni). “He led us admirably well and delivered our second Indian Super League title. He thus also made us the first ISL club to qualify for the AFC Cup and oversaw our debut appearance in Asia while also reaching the 2019 Super Cup final.”
It is understood that Gregory left for England on Saturday morning. The Chennaiyin team trained as usual with assistant coach Syed Sabir Pasha and fitness coach Costas Rostantis leading proceedings.Gregory’s fall from grace was as dramatic as his rise. Few expected him to win the league in his first-ever season in 2017. His claim to fame was a brief stint in charge of Aston Villa who he led to a top-ten finish. But that was back in 1999 and he had spent the last few years managing in Israel and Kazakhstan.
His Chennaiyin team finished second in the group stages on the back of a strong start to the campaign — they won four of their first six games and only won five of their next twelve. Then, with a rock-solid defence making life difficult for opponents, they stunned favourites Goa in the two-legged semifinal and beat Bengaluru FC in the final on their own turf.
The next season though was an absolute nightmare. Their defence was in tatters after the departure of Henrique Sereno and the visible regression of an ageing Inigo Calderon. The attack, which had depended heavily on Jeje Lalpekhlua, constantly fired blanks after the Mizo forward’s goals dried up. The statistics were damning — two wins, nine points and a goal difference of -16. A title-winning season was followed by finishing dead bottom.
Gregory appeared to have enough by the end of it, even waving goodbye to the fans after the last home game of the season, but Chennaiyin stuck with him for their first-ever AFC Cup campaign. A run to the final of the Super Cup suggested that he had re-discovered his groove, but Chennaiyin were abysmal in the AFC Cup, failing to even escape the group stages.
Club management still chose to stick with him and Gregory went about revamping the team, especially the foreign players. However, that made no difference as Chennaiyin once again started the season in the bottom half. After a heavy 0-3 loss to Bengaluru earlier this month, Gregory had even publicly wondered if it was time for someone else to take charge. The final straw was a 2-2 draw at home to Odisha FC, where the Blues threw away the lead twice.