The things is, relatively few people called Chelsea 'boring' during 2004/5 (a few did after our first few games when we were still 'gelling' and then Owen Hargeaves did when we played Bayern in the CL and we decided to play Drogba alone up front to hold on to a 4-2 aggregate lead).
We played some great attacking football with Duff and Robben motoring up both sides, Gudjohnsen in the centre and Lampard ghosting in. If you're doubtful then just look on YouTube for any Chelsea 2004/5 or Duff/Robben compilation. We beat ten sides by more than 4 goals that season and but for an injury to Robben at Blackburn, I think we would have done even better, particularly in the Cups.
The boring tag came in at the start of 2005/6, when we started the season with six wins out of six, without conceding a single goal in the process and then went on to not drop a single point in the league until the end of October. Everyone started accusing us of killing football by basically making things look too easy and in effect, by winning every week, it became 'boring' because a Chelsea win was predictable. You may remember a debate had by many on how 4-5-1/4-3-3 was killing football. Football Focus did a feature on it and 606 had whole phone ins on it.
Like many things, the original reason for the boring tag warped towards the fact that we started playing in a slightly different fashion because Drogba and not Gudjohnsen was the main talisman up front, therefore we played to Drogba's strengths - which compared to Eidur was less attractive for pure football lovers. Couple that with Duff and Robben being in and out of the team with injuries, and neutrals/dislikers accused us of being a completely different kind of boring - a clinical, grinding team with a less impressive brand of football than before. Were we bothered though, no. We were still beating Arsenal, sticking 3 without reply against Man Utd, seeing off Liverpool with ease in the league and spending the whole season 12 points clear.
I haven't really followed Italian Football because my love of Jose doesn't extend to an ESPN subscription, but he'd do a decent job wherever he goes. I still believe he never replaced players to the standard of what Ranieri had brought in, which ultimately cost us in 2006/7 and 2007/8, but none of us truly know how much interference from above he was victim of. However, you can't argue with his track record.
People liked us under Ranieri, People hated us under Mourinho. But I know who I'd rather have at the helm, given the choice of those two.
