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Carlo Ancelotti lead Chelsea to the Double in his first season at the club
Carlo Ancelotti led Chelsea to the Double in his first season at the club but now finds himself under pressure. Photograph: Dave Thompson/PA
Carlo Ancelotti led Chelsea to the Double in his first season at the club but now finds himself under pressure. Photograph: Dave Thompson/PA

Ditching Carlo Ancelotti can only damage careless Chelsea

This article is more than 12 years old
Champions League exit is likely to cost the manager his job and the club another chance to build for the future

There is always a grand prize at stake for the Chelsea manager. Retaining the job is, after all, a triumph in itself and the task can be accomplished only with trophies. Nobody should expect a long tenure and even José Mourinho understood that his time had run out, although he was not sacked. In the broader context there is nothing unusual about club owners who are prone to ruthlessness.

Indeed, Carlo Ancelotti saw regular dismissals all around him in Serie A even as he lasted eight seasons in the Milan post. The manager was assisted by a degree of rapport with the owner, Silvio Berlusconi, which was it itself bolstered by two Champions League titles. It is not fanciful to suppose that the continuation of his employment requires that Manchester United are eliminated from that tournament at Old Trafford, where Chelsea start with a 1-0 deficit.

England is an anomaly since United and Arsenal, who fill the top two berths in the Premier League, are under the command of men in Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsène Wenger who are entitled to suppose that they will determine the time of their departure. They are, respectively, in the 25th and 15th years of their tenure. Ancelotti could never assume he is safe, even though his free-scoring Chelsea took the Double last season.

The side gathered full points from, in particular, the high-profile matches with United, Arsenal and Liverpool. All this was done at minimal cost, with Yuri Zhirkov the one notable signing, but such continuity could not be sustained. The task of reconstructing parts of the squad had to be confronted and that same mission will face the next manager, too, should Ancelotti be jettisoned.

Roman Abramovich, the Chelsea owner, has spent vast amounts without attaining a stature for the club that compares with that of Barcelona or, for that matter, United. On occasion Chelsea's misfortune has been on the grand scale. During the Champions League semi-final of 2009 the unsatisfactory refereeing of Tom Henning Ovrebo at Stamford Bridge was nearly as memorable as the magnificent shot from Andrés Iniesta with which Barcelona eliminated Chelsea in stoppage time.

The one person in the deflated lineup that evening who cannot appear at old Trafford this week is Michael Ballack and there are those who wish the club had retained him, although he had reached his 33rd birthday. Ancelotti did wonders to bring forth a free-scoring exuberance from the old lags who were still on the books but that could not be a long-term strategy.

The opposition in the Champions League are not uniformly fresh and there is talk of an far-reaching overhaul by United in the near future but the reshaping of the personnel is a ceaseless project. So it is that Gary Neville can retire in mid-season without unduealarm since fans are already familiar with the 20-year-old Rafael da Silva. The latter has a knee injury at the moment and may miss the game against Chelsea but John O'Shea will most likely be an acceptable deputy.

Time allows a manager to create depth. The period in which Wayne Rooney looked incapable of scoring was a novelty more than a crisis because Javier Hernández, in his debut campaign with the club, scored regularly to reach his present total of 17 goals. It is glib to suppose that simply keeping a manager on the payroll will ensure excellence in the end and United understand well that Ferguson is exceptional.

In Ancelotti Chelsea, too, have a manager of great merit. Stereotypes about Italian pragmatism were ditched last season as a freewheeling side cut loose, with 103 goals in the league. That Chelsea gusto was not expected to last since, in a few cases, the impact looked like the culmination of a career. Nonetheless Ancelotti had demonstrated what he could do if he enjoyed a little faith.

The ensuing decline of Chelsea was virtually expected. While David Luiz, ineligible for the Champions League, and Fernando Torres have arrived, there are still questions about who takes the decisions over new players and whether there is a coherent scheme. Seamless transition is all but unattainable when the club has had three permanent managers and one noteworthy caretaker, in Guus Hiddink, since Mourinho left in 2007. The hankering for perpetual rotation continues, with Mourinho and Hiddink themselves quoted prominently in the betting as successors to Ancelotti.

It is, all the same, quite an assumption to suppose that Mourinho will be released orsacked by Real Madrid. Where Hiddink is concerned, last month's win over Austria did no more than put his Turkey side into third place in Group A of the Euro 2012 qualifiers. At 64 he is also wary about returning to a club post. Chelsea, even if they fail at Old Trafford, would do themselves further harm by discarding Ancelotti.

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