Letters from Shanghai: The mediocrity remains, but is Drogba on the horizon?

By Andrew Crawford, writing from Shanghai

The dust has started to settle on the ugly coup that ousted Jean Tigana from the Shanghai Shenhua dug out last month- but that doesn’t mean things have improved.

Shenhua’s last game, another dull, uninspiring 0-0 draw against Shanghai Shenxin at the Hongkou was the fourth game in a row that the former have gone without scoring a goal. The team is currently two points from the relegation zone with a third of the season played. Their expected saviour, Nicolas Anelka has not scored since early April whilst the rest of his team mates look jaded and nervous, especially when playing infront of their home crowd. It is perhaps a backhanded compliment to the team that their best player so far has been the young goal keeper, Wang Dalei.

These days, Shenhua have a manager on the sidelines rather than on the pitch, and after Anelka’s brief managerial stint ended in disaster; the former Democratic Republic of Congo coach, Jean-Florent Ibenge, is nominally in charge. The word ‘nominal’ is important because it’s difficult to say exactly how much sway Ibenge has in the dressing room. Anelka, both by status and salary, is untouchable whilst the club’s chairman, Zhu Jun is frequently unpredictable and reactionary so it is safe to say that the new man won’t be doing too much to rock the boat.

Yet, the coaching change, rather than relieve the pressure on the misfiring playing staff, has brought into focus the problems that consecutive managers have had getting results out of the team. Firstly, the continuing injury crisis has not abated and an already weak defensive line is looking increasingly porous as defenders drop like flies. 

Secondly, the overseas recruits simply aren’t cutting it. Anelka and Australian, Joel Griffiths have struggled to stay match fit and have combined for a total of four goals this season.  The third striker, Mathieu Manset, a loan-signing from Reading has been a complete disaster and trundles around the pitch with the grace and elegance of a grand piano slowly rolling down a hill. In midfield, Bosnian midfielder, Mario Bozic, found somewhere in the Israeli first division is applauded for his passion but little else.

There is now growing talk of Didier Drogba finally arriving in Shanghai (one of the stadium shops has even begun selling shirts with his name on the back) but the on-off transfer saga with the striker has left many fans weary. Even if he does arrive, which credible outlets in the city believe to be the case, it would mean that Shenhua’s three best strikers would have a combined age of close to one hundred years old. Evidently, there is still a lot of money in the Shanghai coffers, but not a lot of common sense.

Having only won two out of their first ten games, Shanghai must now travel up to northern China to play Henan Jianye, a traditional middle-ranking team in Chinese football  who are only a point above the relegation zone.

Win, and the team gets momentum for the trickier games against Guizhou Renhe and Changchun Yatai that come after Henan. A loss would see Shenhua drift further towards the basement and possibly into the relegation spots. Anelka needs to find some goals and quickly.