Blues on alert as Ballack sounds Bremen warning

WHILE the dust settles on perhaps the most controversial transfer English football has ever witnessed, Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho is turning his attention to the start of another Champions League campaign which could make or break his future at Stamford Bridge.

The signing of Ashley Cole from Arsenal not only served to re-affirm Mourinho’s message to the rest of the Premiership that armed with Roman Abramovich’s millions, the Blues nearly always get their man. It also demonstrated that, along with the arrival of Michael Ballack and Andriy Shevchenko, Chelsea are not messing around this season in their quest to land the big trophy to elude them in the past three years.

The players who have arrived this summer have not been signed to win the Premiership, but to achieve success in a competition in which they were made to look so ordinary last season by Barcelona.