Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti confident about successful EPL title defence
Carlo Ancelotti is certainly a confident man. The man could have announced with assurance that there is no possible way that he would have committed a foul and that is in essence what gave him the edge last season when Chelsea won the English Premier League title.
Since the ending of the last season Ancelotti has forced experts and fans to speculate about his moves. The Italian man has been as quiet as a church mouse about his plans, while predicting boldly that Chelsea is a strong team and they will be able to defend their title next season. That has been one of his favourite lines whenever a question is asked.
In his latest press conference there was something new. Though he stated the age old line that Chelsea will not be lost without Michael Ballack, Joe Cole and Fernando Torres he did indicate that Chelsea had not lost all hope with Torres and there were a couple of signings expected from Benfica. It has long been anticipated that the manager is about to bring in some new Brazilian blood in the team.
Ancelotti has predicted that Manchester City will be an even better team this season though there end points and position might not show that but they will. He even went a step ahead and defamed Manchester United by saying that the Citizens will be the better Manchester side.
Manchester United’s manager Sir Alex Ferguson has certainly acknowledged that Manchester City has improved, saying that previously they were just noisy neighbours but now they give him a head ache and indeed Manchester City ousted the Blues while the Red Devils barely snatched victory. The reason for their success is simple. Money buys good things and good things make you prosper and their rich-Sheikh-owner has plenty of money.
Chelsea this season has had just one good signing and that has been of the Liverpuddlian Yossi Benayoun and that happened for 5 million pounds. The manger of Chelsea has claimed that they are not in desperate need of Fernando Torres, though the club is willing to pay 50 million dollars for him and consider him as gratuity if they get him.
The 51-year old manager said that the club was in no need to get a new line up for attack and the team can defend their title with their current capabilities. He stated, “We don't need more strikers, we are able to win. We are able to defend the title. We have to defend this title. We want to do our best in all the competitions”.
The Joe Cole is issue is creating rifts in the Chelsea ranks though they might not like to admit it. Ancelotti explained that the reasons to refuse Cole an extension on his contract were financial and their is no personal grudge against him, “The problem was economic. It was a problem between the club and Joe Cole, not me. It was not my problem”. He followed that by discussing the Citizens, saying, “They will do better than last season. They have fantastic players and will be an important opponent for us”.
Ancelotti expressed that his aims weren’t set for just EPL this season, "Our aim is to do better than the last year in the Champions League. We went out too early last season”. They lost to Inter Milan lead by their former manager Jose Mourinho who eventually led the club to win the League.
But now Chelsea is facing more than just a couple of troubles. A lot of their star players are injured including Didier Drogba, Petr Cech, Benayoun and a couple of defenders. Groin and thigh injuries trouble them all but Michael Essien who is back and running from his long knee injury seems in form as he scored the winner that lead the Blues to 1-0 victory against Crystal Palace.
Well the team definitely needs new players as their second line up isn’t that great which has been witnessed in the recent 3-1 humiliation by Ajax. Ancelotti believes that he has to let his first team have full rest especially those that have just returned from the World Cup. He clarified that he didn’t want to take any risk to injure his players ahead of the starting of the season. He expressed his concern mentioning, “I will give the right time to rest and recover to be 100 per cent next season”.
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