Chelsea Comment: Why Carlo Ancelotti Deserves To Be Loved By Blues Fans Just As Much As Jose Mourinho

Italian delivers Blues first title since 2006 and does so in style...

By Andy Brassell

 What a first season in the Premier League it has been for Carlo Ancelotti. No managerial debutant has made such an impact in England since, well, you know who. The Italian's achievement in guiding Chelsea to the league title at the first attempt goes some way to filling the Jose Mourinho-shaped hole that has gaped chasm-like at Stamford Bridge since the Portuguese tactician's acrimonious September 2007 departure.

Of course the 2005 title win under Mourinho was epoch-making - being Chelsea's first in 50 years - yet we should not underestimate the scale of Ancelotti's influence at the club since his arrival. The coach himself said in Friday's pre-match press conference that it's been "a long time" since Chelsea won the title - only four years, but four long years given that it's their principle rivals Manchester United that have kept them at bay in that time - while also denying them a longed-for first Champions League title by the thinnest of margins in Moscow in 2008. 

Despite his excellent CV, Ancelotti was never going to blow into Stamford Bridge like a whirlwind, and it was always going to take time for him to leave an impression. Mourinho's magnetism is based on his personality, his pantomime and his quotability. The more calm and collected Ancelotti, who already had a glittering playing career to back him up when he took his first steps into the coaching world, prefers to express himself purely through his team's own style.

It was deeply revealing in the context of Chelsea's approach this season when Ancelotti mentioned on Friday that the Milan team of late 80s, which he played in, shaped his view of what a football team should be. 'Carletto' played in midfield alongside Frank Rijkaard in a side containing such luminaries as Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit, Franco Baresi and Paolo Maldini, which won successive European Cups in 1989 and 1990 - a feat not even Barcelona could match this year.

They hammered Steaua Bucharest 4-0 in the former with braces by Gullit and Van Basten before squeezing past Benfica (led by Sven-Goran Eriksson, who would go on to become one of coach Ancelotti's Serie A adversaries) in Vienna the year after, via Rijkaard's solitary goal. The Chelsea coach said how that Milan side changed Italian football, by proving that "you can play great football and win things at the same time". It is with this philosophy that he has made an indelible mark on Chelsea in less than a year at the club.

Chelsea have rattled in a club record 103 league goals (141 in all competitions) on their way to the Premier League crown. Although Ancelotti has admitted his surprise at this tally, it's a direct reflection of his attitude, showing England that Italy isn't all about catenaccio. He is no revolutionary, having worked his magic with pretty much the same squad as was available to his predecessors Luiz Felipe Scolari and Guus Hiddink.

This speaks volumes for Ancelotti's motivational skills. Publicly played out mind games are not for him - his trademark expression for the season has been the Roger Moore-esque raising of the left eyebrow that accompanies every interview and press briefing - but he has got all his squad pulling in the same direction. On Friday he praised all the members of his squad who came out from months out in the cold, singling out Paulo Ferreira as one such case. He has coaxed the absolute maximum out of each and every one of them

Mourinho always tells us how much he loves Chelsea, but the manner of his departure still smarts, and his ego betrayed him on his return to the Bridge in March, when he assessed the Blues progress since he left. "They moved on. I moved on. I keep winning important things. They keep winning...something. An FA Cup?"

'The Special One' was undoubtedly the greatest coach in Chelsea's history, but Carlo Ancelotti isn't prepared to let the club become a slave to its past. And now they're winning important things again.