Carlo Ancelotti must answer some familiar questions at Chelsea

Chelsea will be champions for the third time in six seasons if they beat Wigan Athletic tomorrow. They will then be expected to complete English football’s 11th League and FA Cup Double by beating Portsmouth at Wembley a week today. It would be a logical conclusion since Chelsea, if they have not always looked the best team this season, certainly possess the strongest squad: witness their ability to score 21 times in three league matches without their leading marksman, Didier Drogba, getting a mention.

Yet even now football followers of a certain age may find it hard to equate the name of Chelsea with the accumulation of honours on a regular and predictable basis. For years Stamford Bridge was where fans went to enjoy an afternoon of quirky entertainment far removed from the more serious stuff at Highbury or White Hart Lane. Chelsea were fun to watch provided people did not expect them to win.

Certainly this was the impression left by the first of many trips to the Bridge, way back in the autumn of 1954. West Bromwich Albion, the FA Cup holders who had come close to completing the Double the previous season, were the visitors and a crowd of more than 67,000 rejoiced as Chelsea took a 3-1 lead, then sighed as they were eventually held to 3-3. No matter. Being able to sit in the directors’ box right behind Arthur Askey was a thrill in itself.

Comedians drew easy laughs at the Pensioners’ expense: “Are you going to watch Chelsea on Saturday?” “No, they didn’t come to see me when I was bad.” John Cleese once stood up in the main stand to bellow: “Higher Chelsea, you must kick it HIGHER.”

In the home game after that draw with West Brom, Chelsea lost 6-5 to Manchester United. It was the second of four successive defeats and their season was heading in its usual direction, that is to say nowhere in particular. Yet they still became champions for the first time – after 50 years, two world wars and five monarchs – and were no longer a joking matter.

At first glance there would appear to be little point in attempting to relate the football of the mid-50s to that of the present day; as useless an exercise as comparing an air-conditioned, stereo-equipped Ford Focus with the original Ford Popular, a car so basic it was a wonder the manufacturers did not regard the wheels as optional extras. Even so there are striking similarities not only in the way Chelsea emerged to win the title then and the manner in which they are on the point of winning it now but in the question of what is likely to happen next.

Fifty-five years ago, Chelsea were managed by Ted Drake, who had been a fearless Arsenal centre-forward in the 30s and on arriving at Stamford Bridge from Reading set about ridding the team of its dilettantish image while introducing a more pragmatic style, emphasising teamwork, which would have found approval with José Mourinho and Carlo Ancelotti. “First‑time, punchy football is what Mr Drake asks for in contrast to the frills played by Chelsea for so long and with so little success,” wrote Roy Bentley, the club’s leading striker, before the start of the 1954-55 season.

Once the title had been won, though, Chelsea, then as now, had to face the fact that they were an ageing team. The average age of Ancelotti’s side is pushing 30, Drake’s was a fraction younger. And just as the modern Chelsea, for all the millions spent by Roman Abramovich, are looking to the abundant promise of a teenaged team that has just won the FA Youth Cup, so Ted Drake put his trust in kids who came to be known as Drake’s ducklings.

Three seasons later Chelsea put out a forward line at Preston the average age of which was just under 19. Peter Brabrook, Les Allen, David Cliss, Mike Block and a whippersnapper who just could not stop scoring, name of Jimmy Greaves, had all come through the youth scheme. Although Drake left the club early in 1961-62, the season Chelsea were relegated, the roots he had put down continued to serve the team well when Tommy Docherty brought them back up again a year later.

Chelsea may make more big signings this summer but equally significant will be the number of graduates from the youth team who eventually make it in the Premier League. Some things don’t

Manchester United fans’ fears that Liverpool will be flattened are well-founded: Rafael Benítez’s men look spent

The current Liverpool side is the least of Chelsea’s worries as they prepare for a match at Anfield in which victory will put them on the verge of the Premier League title or even make them champions, depending on an outcome elsewhere. If results were all that mattered, Manchester United would be more apprehensive about their trip to the Stadium of Light, where Sunderland are unbeaten since mid-December.

All the same, certain matters of plain

Carlo Ancelotti is to be applauded for instilling a new creed of scoring goals, not stopping them

At the age of 50 Carlo Ancelotti has taken his compatriots by surprise. Italians had to think hard to come up with any precedent in his career to this free-scoring Chelsea team. Someone with a sharp memory pointed to Fabio Capello’s Milan side completing an unbeaten Serie A campaign with an 8-2 victory at Foggia in May 1992, when Ancelotti was in the midfield. The imperfect analogy simply underlines the fact that the Chelsea manager is not normally associated with such sprees.

That is no slight on the knowledgeable and successful Ancelotti. In Serie A, like most other leagues, goals tend to peter out when one side is virtually certain of victory. Chelsea, however, no longer know when to stop. Stoke City have followed Sunderland and Aston Villa as the latest team to concede seven goals to them.

Six of the 21 have come in the last 10 minutes. Ancelotti encourages his players to keep going, but other managers would do likewise and still watch the momentum dwindle. Chelsea were in ever more of a frenzy on Sunday as time passed. The expansiveness is almost sacrilegious at a club still living in the shadows of José Mourinho’s time, when the Premier League was won twice in a row.

The first of those titles, with just 15 goals permitted to the opposition, amounted to a declaration that his organisational and tactical acumen counted for more than any notions that could occur to the men actually playing the game.

It was his smart scheme, too, that counted most when Internazionale prevailed at Stamford Bridge in the Champions League last month.

Mourinho’s Chelsea won the league with ease in 2004-05 as they gathered 95 points, a dozen clear of Arsenal. It is stress, by contrast, that will keep supporters engrossed this year in the bid to keep Manchester United at bay. A pair of victories in the remaining matches would lift Ancelotti’s side to 86 points, well short of the totals reached by Mourinho in 2005 or 2006. The Italian, of course, lives in an altered era, when the level of funding available to Mourinho is no longer on offer.

It has been a boon to everyone seeking entertainment that Ancelotti has chosen to trust in attack. That was sensible since the means at his disposal nudged him in that direction. The names of the back four no longer tripped off the tongue when there was some doubt, for instance, as to who should be paired with John Terry. By a combination of accident and intention, Alex is preferred at centre-half to Ricardo Carvalho, whose effectiveness has been curbed by injuries.

Branislav Ivanovic, in a similar manner, fetched up to good effect at right-back, although he is more likely to be seen at the core of the defence for Serbia. Despite the merits of the players involved in the alterations, rapport has been lost and Ashley Cole’s absence for over two months with a broken ankle was another hindrance. Guarding the back four has been one more dilemma, with at least five different men tried in the holding role.

Chelsea’s defensive record is the worst since 2002-03, the season before Roman Abramovich bought the club. And yet delight has emerged from difficulty. Ancelotti may have been indignant when sloppiness at set pieces cost Chelsea goals in consecutive away defeats at Wigan Athletic and Aston Villa in the autumn, but the real answer to the fallibility has been to overwhelm opponents. It is a tribute to the Italian’s preparation, too, that the side attack so incisively.

Ancelotti has overseen the development of Florent Malouda into one of the most influential figures now that he is more orchestrator than winger. In the chain reaction of this Chelsea campaign, attackers are galvanised by the enterprising approach. Didier Drogba was elated when his beautiful control of a Malouda pass paved the way for the first goal of Salomon Kalou’s hat-trick against Stoke. The provider has 25 league goals of his own in a season where Frank Lampard, too, is a regular scorer.

The paradox now may lie in Chelsea’s need to be a throwback to their former selves at Anfield on Sunday, when they will probably require the sturdiness that eluded them in the loss at Tottenham. Whatever the outcome, Ancelotti’s side are within four goals of the record Premier League total set by United while winning the title in 1999-00 and the season should be cherished for the verve of Chelsea.

ChelseaCarlo AncelottiPremier LeagueJosé MourinhoKevin McCarraguardian.co.uk