Carlo Ancelotti has achieved a great deal during his time in the West End yet faces a summer of uncertainty regarding his future with the defending English League Champions. What more can he do to win over his doubters?
Crossing frontiers – check. Ancelotti became the first descendent of his native Italy to claim the Championship in the English top flight when he led his Chelsea side to victory on the last day of his first season in charge.
Domestic honours – check. His free-flowing outfit not only notched the club’s fourth ever league title but also won the FA Cup to complete the domestic double for the very first time in Chelsea’s history, and even added the Community Shield in the Italian’s first game at the helm.
Bragging rights – check. That wasn’t the only double they did that year either, as Carlo’s men remarkably beat each of the traditional ‘Big Four’ home and away en route to three sets of silverware.
Entertainment factor – check. Chelsea broke goal scoring records galore last term, bagging a staggering 103 goals in the league alone and crowning their display with a brutish 8-0 pummelling of Wigan Athletic in May to win the trophy at a canter.
Maintaining momentum – check. The Blues began the current campaign with a bang, starting where they left off with back-to-back 6-0 wins over West Bromwich Albion at home and Wigan away as the Premier League and FA cup holders threatened to blow their competition out of the water at the first opportunity.
Strength in adversity – check. The 52-year-old’s position has seemingly been undermined throughout his time in West London, with the unwarranted and unwelcome release of Assistant Manager Ray Wilkins a particularly cruel blow to both the squad’s morale and Ancelotti’s authority within the set-up, as the likeable Wilkins’s departure was followed by a horrific run of results in a combination of league and cup competitions.
Bouncebackability – check. The lesser-stated but increasingly crucial element of the club’s relative demise came courtesy of the rigid summer recruitment policy and renewal procedures employed at Stamford Bridge in the close-season. Few new faces emerged, resulting in untried youth team members being propelled into the first team to fill the void left by a mass exodus of experience over the summer, in the form of proven internationals such as Michael Ballack, Joe Cole and Ricardo Carvalho. But talk of not making the table’s top four appears to have been unfounded; the Pensioners now occupy third spot and can be seen leering four points ahead at Arsenal in second.
Media skills – check. Despite interference from above, even if merely implicit, along with rumours of unrest from dressing room to boardroom levels and constant speculation linking the manager with a return to his beloved Roma this summer, the arched eyebrow has betrayed little but a love for the game allied to a measured but clear and genuine faith in his own abilities. This authenticity has earned Ancelotti admirers up and down the country, not unlike Roman Abramovich’s very first victim, Claudio Ranieri, and allowed him to keep his reputation as both gentleman and genius intact. If rumours are to be believed, he would be welcomed back to the former home of both he and his predecessor Ranieri, AS Roma, with open arms were he to move on in May and, one would expect, a healthy compensation package to enjoy in the meantime.
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