Chelsea Season 2009/2010

[Il Duce]

Ancelotti appointed Chelsea boss

Interview: New boss targets Champions League (courtesy of Chelsea TV)

Former AC Milan coach Carlo Ancelotti has been appointed Chelsea manager on a three-year deal.

The 49-year-old Italian left the Rossoneri on Sunday after guiding them to a third-place finish in Serie A.

He will officially take over on 1 July and replaces Russia coach Guus Hiddink, who ended his stint as Blues manager with an FA Cup triumph on Saturday.

"Carlo was the outstanding candidate for the job," read a statement on the Chelsea website.

"He has proved over a long period his ability to build teams that challenged for, and have been successful in, major domestic and European competitions.

Ancelotti, whose English is limited, spent eight seasons at Milan and becomes the club's fifth manager in 21 months following Jose Mourinho, Avram Grant, Luiz Felipe Scolari and Hiddink.

Ancelotti released an autobiography last week in which he described a meeting with Roman Abramovich following the sacking of Grant, with the Chelsea owner telling Ancelotti he wanted a team with more "personality".

Since agreeing to the switch, Ancelotti has revealed the attraction of the Premier League was behind his decision.

"I would like to thank the Milan team, the Milan company, players and Milan fans. I had eight very good years there, and five years as a player, but now I think is the right moment for a new challenge and I want to put all my energy into Chelsea," he told Chelsea TV.

"Now it is time to change and I think Chelsea was a great opportunity and a great team to do a new experience.

Report - Chelsea find new special one?
"I like the Premier League because there are great teams and they play good football. Now there are more tactical matches and very speedy, I like this football. The teams think to defend well and afterwards to attack. I watch Chelsea, I watch Liverpool I watch Manchester United, I know very well English football."

Although he gave what is believed to be his first full interview in English to announce his arrival at Chelsea, Ancelotti conceded it would be hard to grasp the language immediately - something that former Blues manager Scolari was criticised for.

He stated: "For me, it is not easy. I want to learn, I want to improve and when we start the new season I want to speak well because it is important to speak with the players, the team, the assistant and the people who will work with me.

"I believe in teamwork. It is the most important thing to create a group that work together to build a dream. The players must have a strong organisation and strong discipline and strong motivation. I hope to do this the right way to arrive at success."

During his time at Milan, Ancelotti twice won the Champions League, in 2003 and 2007, as well as the Serie A title in 2004 and believes he is the man to deliver Chelsea their elusive first Champions League title.

"For me, the Champions League is a beautiful sensation because when I played I won two times in 1989 and 1990 and it was a fantastic achievement," he enthused. "And it was the same as a coach in 2003 and 2007. Champions League, for me, is the best competition in the world and all teams want to win it.

"Five semi-finals in six years is a beautiful score but now we need to win."

With key players such as Frank Lampard, Didier Drogba, Michael Ballack and Nicolas Anelka in their thirties, former Chelsea winger Pat Nevin believes Ancelotti will have to oversee a period of transition.

"His English is good. I don't think he will have a problem with the language," he told BBC Radio 5 Live.

"But he may well have other problems. Over the next period of time he will be a coach trying to build a dynasty at Chelsea. This is what they have tried to do all the way through and they have not been able to do so.


Ancelotti beat Liverpool to clinch the Champions League in 2007
"Then he will have to change and adapt that team as he goes along. They are still a great team as Guus Hiddink has shown that they can be. However, they are not getting any younger. A number of players will need to be replaced in the next two, three or four years. So Ancelotti will be expected to adapt. And in the meantime keep winning things. It's not going to be easy.

"He's capable of doing it but has a lot to live up to. Hiddink was fantastic and Jose Mourinho still casts a shadow over the club. Anytime he trips up at all he will be caught out.

"With Milan it's the kind of football we all like to watch generally. I would suggest that if he can get a team playing as Milan did at their very best it will be a joy to watch, if not necessarily as open as Barcelona."

A 2-1 victory over Everton at Wembley last weekend delivered the Blues' only silverware of the season, as they finished third in the Premier League and were knocked out of the Champions League semi-finals.

I am still in a bit of shock with the emotion of the game and then in the dressing room

AC Milan general manager Adriano Galliani
Ancelotti also coached Italian sides Reggiana, Parma and Juventus as well as having a successful playing career, winning two league titles and two European Cups with Milan.

However the side were absent from this season's Champions League after a disappointing fifth-place finish in the previous year's Serie A.

An underwhelming Uefa Cup campaign, which featured a 2-2 draw with Portsmouth, ended with defeat by eventual finalists Werder Bremen in the round of 32.

AC Milan president Silvio Berlusconi, who criticised Ancelotti's tactics in May, had previously suggested that former Netherlands coach Marco Van Basten could succeed him, but Leonardo was confirmed in the role earlier on Monday.

The former Brazil international will rebuild without the services of veteran defender Paolo Maldini, who retired after Sunday's 2-0 win over Fiorentina - an emotional day for the seven-times European champions.

"My relationship with Ancelotti has been more as a friend than as a manager and to see him on the Chelsea website holding a Chelsea shirt has left its mark on me," said Milan general manager Adriano Galliani.

"I am still in a bit of shock after yesterday, with the emotion of the game and then in the dressing room. I spoke first and thanked him and Maldini and remembered these eight years and a lot of players were crying.

"Above all I can remember Gennaro Gattuso, who was the closest to me, and he had tears in his eyes."

Former Rangers midfielder Gattuso played the final ten minutes of the win as fellow substitute Alexandre Pato added to Brazilian forward Kaka's strike to confirm their place in the group stages of next season's Champions League.

[Il Duce]

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Here comes another season of doing nothing, I think he will be gone by christmas, if he proves me wrong then good on him, but I doubt he will.

[Bully]

another season of chelsea and them changing their manager at the fall of a hat.

[devilsadvocate]

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Here comes another season of doing nothing, I think he will be gone by christmas, if he proves me wrong then good on him, but I doubt he will.

Chelski need to give him time. If he is gone before Christmas, it would be madness on their part. Surely the likes of my stupid club and that stupid club from the north east have proved that chopping and changing managers as often as you do underpants is not the way to win everything.

[Il Duce]

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Here comes another season of doing nothing, I think he will be gone by christmas, if he proves me wrong then good on him, but I doubt he will.

Chelski need to give him time. If he is gone before Christmas, it would be madness on their part. Surely the likes of my stupid club and that stupid club from the north east have proved that chopping and changing managers as often as you do underpants is not the way to win everything.

Yes your team has prove that swapping managers doesn't work but you guys do seem to enjoy doing it so 'arry gone by October . I think he will be gone by Christmas cause Roman is bit impatient and if we aren't right in the title race and looking strong in the CL he will be gone.

[JK]

Read an article by Tony Cascarino this morning (take that for what it's worth) and he agreed entirely with you WSC.

Interesting that the main power players of AC Milan in recent years, Ancelotti, Shevchenko and Kaka are either gone or apparently on their way out.

[Il Duce]

Read an article by Tony Cascarino this morning (take that for what it's worth) and he agreed entirely with you WSC.

Interesting that the main power players of AC Milan in recent years, Ancelotti, Shevchenko and Kaka are either gone or apparently on their way out.

F..k I'm Good Although having Cascarino agree with may make me change my mind, he is another Craig Foster and Tommy Smyth got no idea and talk s**t.

[devilsadvocate]

Read an article by Tony Cascarino this morning (take that for what it's worth) and he agreed entirely with you WSC.

Interesting that the main power players of AC Milan in recent years, Ancelotti, Shevchenko and Kaka are either gone or apparently on their way out.

Add to that Maldini retired and Gatusso coming to the end of his career.

[Sploosh]

A real tilt for Championship honours this year, Go Chelsea!

[hearts on fire]

yes, go CHELSEA!

[Il Duce]

umm there is already a thread on this, oh well 2 chelsea's threads

[Il Duce]

I hope that Carlo doesnt do with us what he did with milan and get a bunch of old stars (my opinion would change if he got us a champions league).

[Bully]

yeah do we need a second chelski thread?

[Il Duce]

well thats been taken care off, this is the only chelsea 09/10 thread

[johntheclaret]

I think this is is a great story. I wish I had the ability to write it myself. pretty much sums up theEPL right now.

Don't be fooled... you'll pay for Terry's loyaltyLast updated at 12:36 PM on 27th July 2009

The phrase ‘loyalty payment’ has always struck me as something of a contradiction. Loyalty has to be earned. It is not bought.
But let’s just accept that this rule does not apply in modern football. Here loyalty is bought and sold like fruit — by the pound. And if any player possesses a club loyalty card he will keep it where it belongs, in his wallet next to the cash.
That isn’t a problem as long as everybody is honest. It just grates when players prattle on about their allegiance and devotion when their true commitment is usually to Coutts and Co.
Apparently, John Terry’s ties to Chelsea have been severely tested over the past couple of weeks by a wage offer of £1million a month from Manchester City.

This temptingly wild salary has been playing on his conscience to such an extent he has been waiting to find out whether or not Chelsea will give him a handsome pay rise to turn it down. This counter-offer was being described as a ‘loyalty payment’, when a more fitting term would surely be ‘disloyalty payment’.
Terry is perfectly entitled to earn whatever he can from the game, but he would go up in my estimation if he spared us the inevitable twaddle about loyalty, given that he had three years remaining on an already enormous Chelsea contract. This is not an instance where the cliche that he is merely getting ‘what he is worth’ according to ‘market forces’ can be trotted out.
You don’t need a meerkat to know that when City offered Terry £250,000 a week to kick a ball about, with a further £50m in transfer fees to Chelsea, it was an offer designed to obliterate the constraints of the market.
The Arab sheiks now running City can operate way beyond the parameters of any idea of ‘worth’, because the word has no meaning to them. They dangle extravagant sums of money in front of players because they realise that the chance to play for City isn’t enough of a lure in itself as yet, and they must pay hugely over the odds to tempt them in. For now it’s about greed, not glory, although that, too, may be bought in time.

It’s all very reminiscent of Chelsea in the days before Roman Abramovich discovered how to translate the Russian for ‘budget’ into English. Now the hunter has become the hunted.
Other clubs simply refuse to play the high-stakes game, or surrender at the first opportunity.
Arsenal sold Emmanuel Adebayor to City because they could not refuse the cash and did not consider him to be worth £150,000 a week. After seeing some of the lackadaisical performances he put in for the club last season, they’re right.
Laughably, Adebayor then tried to play his own loyalty card by claiming he had really wanted to stay at the Emirates, but the jeers of the fans had driven him into the arms of a contract worth almost £8million a year in Manchester. What a wrench that must have been.

The oddest thing about all of this bartering is that it is so uninspiring.
The season is fast approaching, but for the first time in years it feels as if there is a better party happening elsewhere, only we’re not invited.
I’ve just returned from Spain and the place is in a frenzy of excitement. As Stewart Downing and Peter Crouch swap shirts here to sighs of apathy and we struggle to summon up a flicker of interest in the employment prospects of David Bentley, a glittering La Liga prepares to welcome Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka and Karim Benzema to Real Madrid.

Can they topple the European champions Barcelona? It will be fascinating to find out.
For once the Premier League is the supporting act, the second best show on Broadway. Worse still, it is Madrid who are acting as brokers on this season’s title destination. Having seen them blow a hole in Manchester United’s plans, we now wait to see if they even the score a little by snatching Xabi Alonso or Javier Mascherano away from Liverpool.
Meanwhile, United are tutting at the cost of everything while the Glazer family’s spokesman complains there are too many mercenary players seeking to make a fast buck. He’s right. Following that logic, can we assume the Glazers bought Old Trafford because they were life-long fans?
It’s all about money. And, however you look at it, the net is pretty gross.

This story was written by Des Kelly whom I have a lot of respect for as a jounalist. Straight talking and calls it as it it

[Bully]

IMO i persnally dont think terry is worth all this money citeh are offering and what the little russian at chelsea is offering him to stay there. Maybe its time for another salary cap talk?

[johntheclaret]

IMO i persnally dont think terry is worth all this money citeh are offering and what the little russian at chelsea is offering him to stay there. Maybe its time for another salary cap talk?

Now you know that ain't gonna happen Bully.

[Bully]

yeah mate i know but some of the money figures that are being thrown around tho...

[devilsadvocate]

Don't be fooled... you'll pay for Terry's loyaltyLast updated at 12:36 PM on 27th July 2009

The phrase ‘loyalty payment’ has always struck me as something of a contradiction. Loyalty has to be earned. It is not bought.
But let’s just accept that this rule does not apply in modern football. Here loyalty is bought and sold like fruit — by the pound. And if any player possesses a club loyalty card he will keep it where it belongs, in his wallet next to the cash.
That isn’t a problem as long as everybody is honest. It just grates when players prattle on about their allegiance and devotion when their true commitment is usually to Coutts and Co.
Apparently, John Terry’s ties to Chelsea have been severely tested over the past couple of weeks by a wage offer of £1million a month from Manchester City.

You'd think that for someone getting a squillion dollars a week, he'd spring a few '000 for a publicist the help him not make such a tit of himself.

Or perhaps he enjoys everyone hating him so much?

[Il Duce]

Chelsea 2
Hull 1

Chelsea have Drogba to thank for 2 good goals to beat Hull. Hull took the game to Chelsea and Chelsea strugled to get any going. In saying that at this point of the season the only thing you want to do is win your first game, so thats 1 win and 37 games to go.