Carlo Ancelotti will be back in time for Chelsea-Arsenal match
English Premier League champions Chelsea confirmed on Thursday that team manager Carlo Ancelotti will be leading the team against Arsenal this weekend. There was speculation that the Chelsea boss would not be able to make it due
to the death of his father Giuseppe back in Italy.
Giuseppe died in Italy at the age of 87, his son Carlo Ancelotti was by his side when he moved on. The funeral is to be held on Saturday.
There was an official statement issued by the official Web site of Chelsea "Everyone at Chelsea sends our deepest condolences to Carlo and his family. They are in our thoughts at this time,"
Ray Wilkins the assistant manager of the team will be taking his spot in the pre match press conference on Friday.
Carlo was in charge of the team when they beat Marseille 2-0 at home in their 2nd match of UEFA Champions’ league. Ancelotti had said that the win against Marseille was important in getting the team back on track, following
2 successive defeats; first in Carling Cup (4-3) against Newcastle United and then 1-0 in the Premier League against Manchester City.
Chelsea had started the season with a bang and knocked in 6 goals each in their first 2 games. Before the loss to Manchester City, Blues had scored 24 goals from just 5 games. Chelsea won the league last season on the final day
beating United in the race by just one point. However this season they have looked a much better side, much of that is credited to Ancelotti, the former AC Milan manager has brought with him a certain style to the Stamford Bridge outfit and took them to the
league title in his very first season.
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Meanwhile Arsenal’s Bacary Sagna believes that his team would have to be on their best if they are to get a win against the league champions this weekend.
Arsenal suffered a shock defeat at the hands of West Brom last weekend. The Baggies took a massive 3-0 lead in the 2nd half but Samir Nasri’s 2 late goals did give some respectability to the score-line as they lost 3-2.
Arsenal though did lift themselves midweek to win 3-1 against Partizan Belgarde in the Champions League fixture.
Sagna said that the team really needed to pull off a win in midweek, especially following the defeat in the Premier League. He said that his team should have never conceded 3 goals against West Brom and it was not only the goalkeeper
who was to blame but the intensity level of the whole team was not up to the mark.
The French internationalsaid : " We had to win against Partizan because we did not play well at the weekend, conceding three goals.
"Every game is a test because the season is long, where you have to play match after match."
Sagna said that whole team is now focused on only one thing, and that is to beat the city rivals and League champions Chelsea.
"Now we need to stay focused and look forward to the next game, and we have to make something at Chelsea", he said.
"We have to play our football and we know we have the quality to beat them.
"It will be an open game, but it will be about us, not them."
The midweek tie with the Serbian team in Champions’ League was a tricky affair, and the power outage before the match did not help the Gunners. Sagna said that he had never experienced anything like that, but their manager made
sure that things like that did not take the team’s focus off the task at hand.
The defender said: "We had to use the lights from our phones to get ready.
"It was quite funny, but we stayed focused and came on the pitch to get the win."
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