Chelsea – Is Ancelotti to blame or do the problems lie much deeper?
When a football manager brings glory to a club in his first season, one would expect some form of reward. Whether that be an extended contract, a bonus of sorts, or perhaps some further squad investment.
Carlo Ancelotti, in his first season at Chelsea, won the Premiership title and the FA Cup, a double. Although we do not know what financial reward he received personally, we do know that he was given some money to purchase the new defender Ramires. Since then, and behind his back, Ray Wilkins has been sacked, and you can almost sense the Chelsea owner, Roman Abramovich licking his lips at the thought of who his next man will be in charge.
Surely, Chelsea players and fans realise that Ancelotti is doing his job well under the circumstances. When we go back a few years when Steve Clark was assistant manager, Chelsea we on fire. He was allowed to leave to join West Ham and Chelsea’s dominance at the top began to falter. Getting rid of Jose Mourinho was a very big mistake by the Russian boss, and one would have thought he may have learned from it, who are we trying to kid.
An assistant manager actually spends more time with the players than the actual manager and getting rid of one without as much notification to the manager or players, apart from them seeing it on Sky Sports News, is somewhat shocking. Ancelotti cannot be blamed for the effect Wilkins sacking had on them. It is easy to tell them to just carry on and keep your heads up but deep down it will have shocked them and it is certainly having an effect on them, just look at their last eight results both domestic and abroad.
A bigger issue for Chelsea’s owner will be how many players will want to stay at the club next season, sure, they love the club, the fans and London, but do they love the owner and his handling of the situation? Absolutely not. Abramovich has an infatuation with Barcelona and believes he has hired enough managers and purchased enough players to be able to mirror the Nou Camp outfits performances, how wrong he is.
Sadly for Chelsea, and for football in general, this episode can only go one way and that is with the sacking of Carlo Ancelotti. For other managers thinking of joining at a later date, they might want to call some of the former managers first before opening that bottle of champagne aboard the owners yacht.
