Feb 23

José Mourinho hits back at Carlo Ancelotti over ‘unloved in Italy’ jibe

• Inter coach says Ancelotti part of establishment ‘clan’
• Chelsea manager may play Juliano Belletti at left-back

José Mourinho, keen as ever to cast himself as a fearless maverick, tonight derided Carlo Ancelotti as being part of the establishment “clan” that he has long railed against.

Mourinho leads Internazionale into tomorrow’s Champions League tie against Chelsea with his long-standing dislike of Ancelotti exacerbated by his rival’s comment that all of Italy, bar Inter’s fans, would want the Premier League club to advance from the last-16 meeting.

The Portuguese chose his pre-match media conference at Inter’s training base in Appiano Gentile to hit back at Ancelotti, the Chelsea manager, who is expected to press Juliano Belletti into emergency service at left-back in tomorrow’s first leg to solve a selection crisis.

“If he [Ancelotti] says that, it’s because he knows and because somebody told him or because he belongs to the clan,” Mourinho said. “I do my job as always.”

Mourinho is the arch anti-establishment figure and, only last season, when Ancelotti was in charge at Milan, the former Chelsea manager complained about how he was treated by a cartel of Italian coaches in Serie A, including Ancelotti, Claudio Ranieri and Luciano Spalletti.

Mourinho has cemented his reputation this season. His eyes narrowed as he reflected on the three-match touchline ban he received yesterday for a handcuff gesture aimed at a referee who sent off two Inter players – the third time that he has been censured his season. Yet if Mourinho can appear largely unloved in Italy, he continues to feel appreciated in England, where he managed Chelsea from 2004 to 2007, and his affection for the country endures.

“I could have been England manager,” he said, of the approach made to him by the Football Association before they appointed Fabio Capello, “and at that time, I was maybe the proudest man in the world. For a foreign coach to have the possibility to lead England … I was the proudest man in the world. I thought and I thought. One part of me wanted but the other knew it was not the job for my mentality. England chose a very experienced manager, who is doing a great job and because I love England, I hope he keeps doing very well.”

Ancelotti’s principal problem is at left-back, where he is without the injured Ashley Cole, Yuri Zhirkov and José Bosingwa; he might have cause to regret his decision not to register Paulo Ferreira for the Champions League. Belletti, who has carried a slight knee injury, appeared to come through training at San Siro tonight and he ought to take his place but, not for the first time, Cole was a talking point.

“I called him a few days ago,” said Mourinho, “because I care about him and I wish him a very quick recovery. And because I like him very much, my advice is ‘Don’t leave England’.”

It was put to Mourinho that Cole, whose off-the-field indiscretions will surely make him a target for opposing fans when he returns from his ankle injury, might benefit from a move abroad, where Real Madrid and Barcelona are among the clubs who would like to sign him.

“I watched Ashley Cole play until the moment of his injury and I watched him play superbly,” said Mourinho. “So if he has problems, they are for sure not on the pitch. Ancelotti must give him advice, his family must give him advice and he must think for himself. If he wants my little opinion, my opinion is ‘Stay in England’.”

Ancelotti, who spent eight years at Milan, has been keen to skirt away from controversy in the build-up to the tie, and he even tried to distance himself from the quote about Italy wanting Chelsea to win.

“I am not interested in Mourinho,” he said. “I am only interested in preparing my team well. We are focused today and we will be focused tomorrow on this important game. We will not change our motivation for this game whatever happens outside of our dressing room.”

José MourinhoCarlo AncelottiInternazionaleChelseaChampions LeagueDavid Hytnerguardian.co.uk

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Feb 22

Chelsea pull plug on player power | Owen Gibson

Tabloid stories about John Terry and Ashley Cole have encouraged Roman Abramovich to act

The Stamford Bridge hierarchy have become used in recent weeks to fearing late‑night calls detailing lurid off-field allegations involving their biggest names, ­followed the next morning by the thud of the tabloids on the doormat. The latest round of headlines concerning the alleged nocturnal antics of Ashley Cole while on a club tour of the United States have reinforced the belief of the owner, Roman Abramovich, and his manager, Carlo Ancelotti, that they must call time on the culture of player power that has helped propel the club through the most successful and yet most turbulent period in its history.

Even as the chief executive, Ron Gourlay, who last year replaced Peter Kenyon at Stamford Bridge, was last Wednesday reading the riot act to players at the behest of Abramovich, tabloid editors were preparing a fresh series of revelations. The difficulty for the club is that the sentiments underpinning last week’s meeting, said to have left the players in no doubt about their responsibilities to the club, represent a challenge to the culture that has pervaded ever since José Mourinho walked through the door and elevated John Terry and Frank Lampard to senior positions in the dressing room.

A fast turnover of managers since then, combined with internal and external pressures and the need for instant ­success have left certain senior players in the ascendant. To a greater or lesser extent, the departures of Mourinho, Avram Grant and Luiz Felipe Scolari were all linked to the power of the players within the Chelsea dressing room. Terry, Lampard, Didier Drogba and other senior players appeared to have a direct line to the owner. Shortly before Scolari’s sacking, a delegation of senior players visited Abramovich to ­complain about his training methods.

It is telling that neither Manchester United or Arsenal, where a single managerial figure reigns supreme, have experienced problems to the same extent. Manchester City, a club being built using the Abramovich model, will be watching with interest.

It is one of several ironies surrounding Champions League clash against Internazionale at San Siro, a week after the internal meeting that could help define their season, that the man who will be standing in the Inter dugout both set that policy in train and, ultimately, suffered at its hands. A dressing-room ethos that has helped bring unprecedented success to Fulham Road in recent years, when underwritten by Abramovich’s billions, also began to sow the seeds of the current malaise.

Previously the club has been successful at using lawyers to head off stories that could have proved embarrassing. Now it appears that tactic has come back to bite them, with the advice offered in entirely good faith by the communications director, Steve Atkins, to Ann Corbitt, the latest woman with whom Cole has been linked, and intended to help her ward off the press, instead being reproduced in full in Sunday tabloids. Cole had assured Atkins that the story was not true.

During the forensic examination of Terry’s recent travails, the extent to which the player had become all-powerful within the Chelsea set-up was a much-discussed factor. Yet while the focus was on England rather than Chelsea, and the story did not appear to affect Terry’s performances on the pitch, the club was happy to maintain the line that it was a private matter.

The difference with Cole’s alleged indiscretions is that they have occurred while away on official club business. Corbitt is said to have been transported back to the team hotel on a pre-season tour of the US in the official bus. Another woman told how an aide in an official tracksuit had escorted her to Cole’s hotel bedroom.

While recognising that the club cannot pronounce on the morality of individual players, senior figures believe that the line between the personal and professional has been blurred and that immediate action is required. Staff who may over time have become loyal to long-serving players rather than their employer have also been sternly reminded that they are expected to report any breaches of its disciplinary code. Cole now faces an internal disciplinary process that contains sanctions up to and including the possibility of being transfer-listed. Not to mention further speculation about his marriage.

Ancelotti is believed to have been more involved in last week’s decision than has been reflected to date. While the manager previously maintained, under repeated questioning at the height of the Terry affair, that he is only concerned with what happens on the pitch, he too feels that the latest revelations have crossed a line.

There is a belief inside the club that all of those players present at last week’s briefing understood the gravity of the situation and recognise the need for a wholesale change in the culture. The owner has vowed to restore the balance of power to the manager’s office, beginning this week with Cole’s disciplinary procedure. Those on the outside may be more sceptical about whether it will be that simple, with some believing that Gourlay, acting on orders from Abramovich, has backed himself into a corner.

The danger now is that it has become open season on the private lives of Chelsea players, with the tabloids opening their chequebooks. And now that the club has set a precedent by taking retrospective action, it risks having to spend much of the rest of the season dealing with the fallout.

Premier LeagueChelseaAshley ColeJohn TerryOwen Gibsonguardian.co.uk

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Jan 18

Nicolas Anelka goes from loner to leader by pursuing his instincts | Kevin McCarra

Chelsea are yet to miss Didier Drogba because of the Frenchman’s can-do mentality and improved all-round game

Nicolas Anelka has such a gift for spreading consternation that he has dumbfounded employers as much as opponents, but the attacker may have sprung his last and best surprise by delighting Chelsea. His status as a leaderat Stamford Bridge is increasingly marked and Carlo Ancelotti was stating the obvious when he suggested that Didier Drogba, otherwise engaged at the Africa Cup of Nations, need not be missed too much so long as the Frenchman is around.

There had, after all, been a dress rehearsal when Drogba served a three-match ban in the Champions League at the start of this season. Anelka scored the only goal in each of the first two games. For a man of such an enviable aptitude, he can get exasperated when he is treated merely as a specialist finisher. While countless attackers would rejoice if they were ever to be described in that fashion, he holds higher ambitions.

Anelka acts as if it is now his mission to achieve so much that the feats obliterate all memory of the period at Arsenal when he made his name by concentrating on being in position to outpace the last defender. It may seem odd to be scornful of such an approach, but a player who lives by the ploy will fade fast as youth and speed deteriorate. Nowadays, we have to get used to the fact that Anelka’s conception of his true self was no delusion. He scored twice in Saturday’s 7-2 rout of Sunderland, but was also involved in other goals.

It is still futile to pretend that Anelka had always been wronged or that his conduct necessarily has its justification. His status at Stamford Bridge comes as a surprise when the 2008 European Cup final is borne in mind. The Frenchman had no apparent affinity with the then manager, Avram Grant, and his complaints were egocentric after his miss in the shootout made Manchester United the victors.

Anelka, peeved by his introduction as a substitute in extra-time, rejected any idea that he ought take one of the early penalties if the game ended in a draw. “That is out of the question,” the striker would explain later. “I have come on as a right-back.” The convoluted argument seemed all the more ridiculous to those who recalled Anderson, a mere 19-year-old who took to the field a minute from the end, smashing home his kick nervelessly for United.

Anelka did possess the conviction of a natural loner. The previous six Chelsea penalties had surely been hit by men obeying orders. Each was fired to Edwin van der Sar’s left, where he looked weaker. John Terry alone failed to convert and even then there was no save, with the ball clipping the post. Anelka was to be different. His effort was directed to the goalkeeper’s right and the save won the trophy for United.

The Chelsea forward might have been wilfully disobeying but he may also have calculated that he could surprise Van der Sar. Whatever the interpretation, Anelka had followed his own hunch. It is a habit that can make him as infuriating as he is intriguing.

Anelka’s path has been idiosyncratic. His time at Real Madrid looked calamitous, butit tends to be forgotten that he was in the line-up that won the 2000 European Cup.

He did squander years and the advice of his brothers appeared misguided. For a while he lived in Salford Quays and would have gazed across the waterfrom his apartment at one of the great amphitheatres of football, Old Trafford. Then Anelka would get into his car and drive off in the opposite direction for training with Bolton. No slight intended on Sam Allardyce’shighly capable side, but it was not the expected setting for a potentially formidable talent in his mid-20s.

However he did it, Anelka has prevailed and, at last, is succeeding on his own terms. The forward is settled, with his wife expecting their second child, and circumstances are right on the pitch. He is at far less risk of being shunted on to the wing and treasures the licence to scheme as well as shoot. His country, who preferred to call up Sidney Govou for the 2006 World Cup when Djibril Cissé got injured, have presented Anelka with 30 of his 63 caps in the last three years.

By pursuing his own instincts a 30-year-old in the latter stages of his career is giving more to Chelsea and to the game itself than ever before.

ChelseaPremier LeagueAvram GrantKevin McCarraguardian.co.uk

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