Who’s the Special One now?
Without much fanfare and minimal changes in personnel, Carlo Ancelotti has quietly changed Chelsea’s fortunes within a few months. Is this the year that Chelsea put it together and fulfill their owner’s dream of world football domination? After all, they are sitting a top the Premier League charts and are through to the group stages of the Champions League.
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Spain is trying to conquer the world again. This time, they might succeed.
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I thought Carlo Ancelotti would only struggle because of the language barrier. However since the summer he has picked the lingo rather quickly and CFC are able to reap the benefits. He is a winner and one of the best coaches around. As a player, he was fantastic in that super Milan team with the likes of Gullit, Van Basten, Rijkaard, Donadoni, Baresi, Maldini et al… I suppose he is one of the few truly great players to have found success in club management. Thus understanding the choice of his hire is not rocket science. Ancelotti is capable of dealing with pressure in the way that Hiddink and Mourinho could. Like all good coaches, Ancelotti has a history of being loyal to his players and they trust him. More importantly he is able to deal with Abramovich because he has dealt with Berlusconi, who has even claimed to have selected teams and tactics. That is something the Russian has never done, even though he has, at times, craved a greater input and a friendlier, yet tough coach.
I think Abramovich needs to keep him around for at least the remainder of the season and CFC will win the league this year….
Think? There’s no way Carlo is going anywhere for a while. Roman’s happy with the style (which IMHO still leaves much to be desired) but the results speak for themselves. There will be some blips along the way. The important thing is that he has the temperamental players on his side. Drogba, Deco, etc. The team seem to have that confidence and once Joe Cole is fully healthy, I think the title will be Chelsea’s to lose (provided they get through January without too many blips).
Ca$hley cole injured for some time (blip), Bosingwa out for three months (blip), Drogba, Kalou, Essien, and Obi Mikel (the 35 year old Nigerian) all gone for the ANC (blip-blip-blip)…
Good think the ban (which we all knew wouldn’t stick) got lifted. Now it remains to be seen how much ransom money teams like Atletico will get from Uncle Roman for reinforcements.
Mustafa is right. It is really CFC’s title to lose. Ivanovic can easily cover for A Cole in the interim. In fact he has been one of their post consistant players this year. And I am sure the midfield of Ballack, Deco, Lampard, Malouda, Yuri Zhirkov…. with Joe Cole supporting Anelka can easily compensate for the loss of their African players….
Obi Mikel?!
Is that tongue in cheek mate?