ENGLISH PREMIERSHIP: DOMINIC FIFIELDreflects on Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti's first season in charge at Stamford Bridge
IN EARLY August, when the Premier League remained a complete unknown, Carlo Ancelotti visited Stamford Bridge and sat alone in the home dugout with only groundsmen tending to the turf for company. “I tried to imagine what it would be like full and noisy with my team out on the pitch,” he said. “This is my first season outside Italy, but there’s no tension or pressure. I am happy, not afraid. If we have strength and the right mental attitude, we can win at the end.”
That assessment was offered before the visit of Hull City on the opening day, a match won in the last minute by Didier Drogba’s mis-hit cross. Nine months on and Ancelotti is still questioning why he need be tense, albeit for different reasons.
Chelsea are on the brink of securing their first league title since that claimed by Jose Mourinho four years ago, with an FA Cup final and potentially this club’s first double to come. Roman Abramovich had been targeting the Champions League when turning to a sixth manager in five years. That wait is prolonged, yet his appointment has succeeded in shattering Manchester United’s domestic dominance.
Ancelotti’s achievement is admirable. After all, in eight years as Milan manager he claimed Serie A only once, in 2004. He may have benefited from the departures of Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez from Old Trafford, and from the unnerving sense of turmoil that has undermined Liverpool all season. Yet his ability to convince an ageing Chelsea side who had slipped off the title-winning pace in the previous three years that they could prevail has been impressive.
The same had been expected of Luiz Felipe Scolari in 2008. The Brazilian had arrived with vast experience accrued from around the globe, yet ended up failing to convince a squad shaped by, and possibly still pining for, Mourinho. John Terry and Frank Lampard urged him to implement more strenuous training sessions, yet seven years as an international manager with Brazil and Portugal immediately prior to arriving at Stamford Bridge had blinkered his outlook.
“Guys like Didier Drogba, Michael Ballack and Petr Cech never accepted my methods, or what I was asking of them,” admitted Scolari after his dismissal. Those same players have embraced Ancelotti’s techniques, geared as they have been for so long to the demands of elite club management. Keeping such significant figures on side has choked the political murmurings that have unseated managers in the recent past.
Ancelotti brought a reputation that demanded respect – shaped through his career as a player and a coach – but has won new friends with his blend of hard work and good humour. “We work hard on the training ground and, off the pitch, we are fairly light-hearted around the place,” said Frank Lampard. “Carlo understands what it is to be a player and what he has to do as a manager. He is laid-back, but when he speaks he speaks with authority.”
The Italian was asked yesterday what he had learned about himself in his first season abroad. “That it’s the same job,” he replied.
“The most important thing is always to maintain an important relationship with your players and, here, there’s never been a problem with anyone.”
That, in itself, is significant. Chelsea may not have been unnerved by any politics, but they have endured their share of intrigue off the pitch that might have deflected focus on it. Terry’s loss of the England captaincy appeared to affect his displays. Ashley Cole, too, has suffered with the high-profile breakdown of his marriage.
“Those were personal issues and they were able to keep the problems outside the training ground,” insisted Ancelotti. Yet when those issues coincided with the team’s dip in form earlier this year, with defeat at home to Manchester City and elimination from Europe by Mourinho’s Internazionale, the manager reacted. The potentially costly draw at Blackburn at the end of March prompted Abramovich to make his displeasure clear to a squad threatening to underachieve, and prompted Ancelotti to seek solutions.
Lampard described that slump in form as having left the team “in a rut”, though the manager’s clear-the-air meeting with his squad appeared to rekindle conviction. “It was only that heart to heart, where the players got things off their chest, which allowed us to move on together,” said the England midfielder. “A lot of credit needs to go to the manager for that. He sat down and was open himself, and we all moved on.”
Buying into his methods has been all the easier given how enjoyable playing in an attack-minded team has proved.
It took the new coach time at the start of the season to settle into a preferred system, his favoured diamond with Lampard at its tip adapting to something nearer a 4-3-3, but the free-flowing movement encouraged in the centre and the width provided by the front three have terrorised opponents.
Before that opening fixture against Hull, Ancelotti had speculated about whether the locals would ever chant his name. Should the Premier League trophy be passed down the line of champions tomorrow, the biggest cheer is likely to be bellowed for the Italian who made all this possible.
