After sacking Avram Grant following the club’s first Champions League final, nothing at Chelsea should surprise us.

But Jose Mourinho possibly going back as coach? Even in the wacky world of Stamford Bridge, it is surely just paper talk and fantasy.

Mourinho is a shrewd man and he will know as well as anyone that coaches very rarely succeed in a second stint at a club. (See our blog from when Kevin Keegan was reappointed at Newcastle.)

The dynamics of Chelsea are also very different from when he took over in 2004.

Back then, Claudio Ranieri had already laid the foundations of a Premier League-winning side. Arjen Robben and Petr Cech were signed for the next season before Mourinho arrived. The Portuguese also had bags of cash to bring in Drogba, etc etc.

This time it would be different. Chelsea could lose Drogba and a number of other players, meaning a large rebuilding job would have to be undertaken, just when Roman Abramovich’s appetite for investment appears to have waned.

Remember as well that it was only in September that Mourinho’s relationship with the Chelsea hierarchy completely collapsed. Media reports say Abramovich has since had some “cosy chats” with his former coach and even bought him a car, but working together again would bring the same tensions, the same clashes of ego.

Assuming the second coming for Mourinho is not about to take place, where does that leave us?

Frank Rijkaard, Roberto Mancini, Sven-Goran Eriksson and Russia coach Guus Hiddink have all been mentioned as possible candidates but the best answer to Chelsea’s problems might well be Marcello Lippi, who has been out of work since Italy’s World Cup triumph two years ago.

Lippi, incidentally one of the few coaches to enjoy success in a second spell when he returned to Juventus, has been waiting for a perfect opening.

He said he would have talked to Barca if they hadn’t appointed Pep Guardiola. He has also said he wouldn’t fancy learning English. Yet England coach Fabio Capello’s first English interview at the weekend was impressive.

Lippi’s language barrier would be easier to overcome than all of Mourinho’s baggage.

Mark Meadows, Milan

 PHOTO: Jose Mourinho while manager of Chelsea at last year’s FA Cup final, Sep 20, 2007 REUTERS/Eddie Keogh

Has it reached the stage where a Champions League semi-final is not enough to safeguard a coach’s job?

Avram Grant, whose Chelsea side visit Liverpool in their first leg on Tuesday, is under pressure despite his team stil having an outside chance of the Premier League title.

Boardroom squabbles mean Rafa Benitez is not 100 percent certain to be at Anfield next season while Barcelona’s Frank Rijkaard desperately needs a win against Manchester United on Wednesday to deflect attention from Primera Liga disappointment.

And what about poor Roberto Mancini? He is on the verge of leading Inter Milan to another scudettoand yet the papers are again full of talk that Jose Mourinho is San Siro-bound.

Surely the problems at PSG and Valencia show what real failure is like? Our dynamic duo Owen Wyatt and Jon Bramley discuss the pressure on coaches these days and want your views.  

Leave a comment below in the usual way or post a video response to youtube or wherever, tag it “Vlog on the pitch” and we’ll load it up here if we like it.

It was just like old times for me covering Frank Rijkaard’s press conferences either side of Barcelona’s Champions League win over Schalke, as another Dutch coach got the Louis van Gaal treatment from the media.

I was based in Barcelona when Van Gaal finally called it quits at the end of his first spell at the club and listening to the Catalan press and radio hounding out the former Ajax man was at times almost painful.

Barcelona’s 3-2 defeat by Real Betis at the weekend led to headlines calling the Schalke game an “ultimatum”, while Rijkaard was asked whether a jokey conversation, caught on camera, about him carrying a parachute as hand luggage for the flight had any deep significance.

The difference is that not only does Rijkaard have more credit built up than Van Gaal did — thanks to the Champions League win in 2006 — but that the younger man refuses to rise to the bait. Van Gaal could never resist getting into arguments with journalists, while Rijkaard simply smiles, leans back and mumbles a few well-worn phrases about the team having to work harder.

So what to make of the Schalke game, which was won 1-0 thanks to a goal from the ludicrously talented 17-year-old Bojan Krkic?

If Barcelona go on to win the tie and reach the semi-finals, as they surely now should, it will be remembered as a textbook display in a European away game. That’s not the real story.

This was a case of Barcelona showing the same failings as they had against Betis, when they let slip a two-goal lead, but getting away with it.

Barcelona were so superior to Schalke in the first half that it was quite ridiculous. Xavi and Iniesta in midfield strolled around the Arena AufSchalke as if they owned the place, creating what seemed to be an endless series of passes that led to the early goal for Bojan and should have brought them many more.

In the second half Barcelona just stopped playing, and failed to create a single scoring chance. Schalke showed how you beat them by not giving them anything like the time on the ball they had in the first half, pouring players down the wings and sending high balls into the middle. A better team would have had them.

It’s worth remembering that Deco, Ronaldinho and Messi all missed the game through injury, while Eto’o looked barely fit. Still, it must be frustrating to Barcelona fans to see a team with such talented players play themselves into trouble again and again.

What’s the next step? From talking to my colleagues from Barcelona it looks more and more like a change of coach at the end of the season, even if Rijkaard doesn’t quite have his parachute packed yet.

Kevin Fylan, Gelsenkirchen