Chelsea’s young Blue bloods are ready for changing of the old guard | Richard Williams

The old faithfuls took Chelsea a step nearer to the title at Anfield but the club’s future is full of youthful promise

Amid the strangest atmosphere Anfield has known for many years, Chelsea took a tentative step into the future today. As the match ended with the London club on the brink of a third title in the Abramovich era, finally it became possible for the club to look beyond the achievements and aura of José Mourinho.

Most of the players in the line-up were part of Mourinho’s side, and some of them go back as far as Claudio Ranieri’s tenure, but what happens next at Stamford Bridge appears likely to become firmly identified with Carlo Ancelotti. During the summer, certain changes and additions to the squad may cement that association.

Joe Cole, unable to agree a new deal, looks likely to depart, along with Juliano Belletti and possibly Deco. Gossip suggests that if Mourinho takes over at Real Madrid in the summer, he will come calling for Frank Lampard and perhaps Ricardo Carvalho. But the presence of Frank Arnesen, the club’s somewhat shadowy director of football, in the directors’ box provided a reminder that finally Chelsea are ready to see some tangible reward from their expensive academy programme.

At the bottom of their lengthy first‑team squad list are the unfamiliar names of 10 young players, including the Italian forward Fabio Borini, the Dutch defender Jeffrey Bruma, the French midfielder Gael Kakuta and the extremely gifted 17-year-old Joshua McEachran, an English playmaker, who are considered ready for gradual assimiliation into the senior line-up. Their presence will reduce the average age of a group currently heavily weighted towards players in their late 20s and early 30s – although the club’s medical and physiotherapy team have successfully prolonged the youth of so many of them.

If Ancelotti is clever, he will not find himself having to explain to his employer that next season is a necessary period of transition. From what we have seen, Abramovich is not much interested in such a phenomenon. He wants results. He is likely to fund at least one major purchase in the close season, possibly Sergio Agüero, Atlético Madrid’s Argentinian striker, but he would like the team to reflect his investment in Arnesen’s project. This will be a new challenge for Ancelotti, whose successful seven-year spell with Milan was marked by a strong preference for extending the careers of

Sir Alex Ferguson: Manchester United ‘charged up’ to overhaul Chelsea

• Manager says opponents Tottenham in ‘championship form’
• Victory over Manchester City lifted champions

Sir Alex Ferguson has warned Chelsea his Manchester United players are “lifted and charged up” by moving within a point of the Premier League leaders but he also recognised the dangers posed by Tottenham Hotspur at Old Trafford tomorrow when he described them as the best team from White Hart Lane he had seen in nearly a quarter of a century in English football.

After beating Arsenal and Chelsea in their last two matches, Harry Redknapp’s fourth-placed team head to Manchester in what Ferguson described as “championship form”. But the United manager is convinced that Paul Scholes’s stoppage‑time winner against Manchester City last weekend has given the champions new impetus in their bid to overhaul Chelsea at the top of the table.

“There has been a lift in the camp this week,” he said. “There has been always a great atmosphere in our training over the years but then you get a lift like last week and the change is very noticeable. It’s been very competitive. The players are lifted and charged up. I trust them and I hope they can do it for me again.”

With three games to play, United are a point behind Chelsea and also have an inferior goal difference, 51 to 54, but Ferguson believes it could be a telling psychological advantage if his team can move two points clear by the time Carlo Ancelotti’s side host Stoke City on Sunday. “Chelsea have a lot of experienced players but pressure does come into it at this kind of year. It’s going to be nervy for some players and supporters. Some players will get nervy, no question about that. It happens.”

United’s manager was referring to Chelsea’s defeat at Tottenham last Saturday on the back of Scholes’s late winner at Eastlands. “Last weekend has helped to lift us,” he said. “When Scholes scored I was resigned to the game finishing nil-nil. It would have been very difficult for us to win the league after that but we won the game with the last kick of the ball and we have done that far too many times for it just to be a coincidence. We should be applauded for that incredible resilience.”

Ferguson, however, is mindful of Tottenham’s own position, pushing for the last Champions League place, regardless of the fact they have not won any of their last 66 away games in the league against “Big Four” clubs. “I think they are the best Tottenham team of my time in England. On the one hand I congratulate them for beating Chelsea but, on the other hand, we now face the problems that Chelsea faced and we have to play against them.

“Spurs are going for fourth place and I’m sure they will come to have a go. We always expect that of Tottenham and, looking at their form in the last two games, I don’t think anyone below ourselves and Chelsea, possibly Arsenal, have reached that kind of form. What you saw from Spurs against Arsenal and Chelsea was championship form, convincingly beating two of the best three teams in the league.”

After this weekend United go to Sunderland before finishing the season with a home game against Stoke. Chelsea’s last game is also at home, against Wigan Athletic, but Ancelotti’s men have a tough encounter with Liverpool at Anfield next weekend. “You have to look at that game,” Ferguson said. “If it was us going to Anfield, we’d look upon it as a difficult game. Anyone would. But first of all, both of us have games at the weekend to address and hopefully we can navigate ours.”

Ferguson particularly praised Gary Neville, saying he expected the former England international to stay at Old Trafford for another year, as well as expressing his belief the defender might yet be included in Fabio Capello’s World Cup squad. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he went to South Africa. It’s not my job to say that, and it’s difficult enough for an international manager, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he chose him.”

Of his own future, Ferguson was irritated by reports that he had decided to retire at the end of next season. “Absolutely not true. Rubbish. Absolute rubbish. That’s a laugh if ever I have heard one. As I’ve said time and time again, the only thing that determines my staying here is my health. Unfortunately for you lot [the media] I’m in rude health. You can be left to suffer me. And you’ll be gone before I’m gone.”

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Joe Cole: Doing the Double is a big motivation

• Blues ‘can drive final nail in coffin’ of United’s title bid
• ‘Chelsea need to keep their nerve for the next four weeks’

Joe Cole believes that should Manchester United lose to Manchester City in Saturday’s lunchtime derby then Chelsea can drive the “final nail in the coffin” into their title ambitions by winning at Tottenham Hotspur later in the day.

Victory at White Hart Lane evening would in effect mean Chelsea have all but secured the Premier League title should United slip up against their increasingly confident neighbours, the England midfielder believes.

“Whatever