Ancelotti has little time to fix machine

BEFORE the end of October, Chelsea were considered Premier League champions-elect, such was their serene procession ahead of their struggling rivals.

Carlo Ancelotti’s side were considered untouchable and other pretenders to their crown vastly inferior to the blue machine. Suddenly there is a spanner in the works at Stamford Bridge and English football at the highest level is generating interest levels never previously seen.

Such is the ability of the major contenders to keep loading double-barrel shotguns and aiming them at their feet, even Harry Redknapp, the Spurs manager, believes his team could win the league this season.

Chelsea have gone from an average of four goals per game to just one in their last four matches and they took aim and scored another direct hit at St Andrew’s to send everyone scrambling for the record books.

The unnerving results of the research for Carlo Ancelotti is no manager on Roman Abramovich’s watch has ever put together a losing sequence of three defeats in four Premier League games. The Russian oligarch has a notoriously itchy trigger finger, just ask Luis Felipe Scolari and Jose Mourinho.

Something appears to be rotting within the champions, following the strange dismissal of Ray Wilkins and there is an unhealthy stench about the fact contract talks with the Italian have been suspended as the jungle drums beat about Abramovich’s growing displeasure.

Wilkins is preparing a legal fight and a case for unfair dismissal, while Chelsea’s case for retaining their title is starting to look flimsy. Without the leadership qualities of John Terry, they lack character, even if they created enough chances to win two games and were unfortunate to run into Ben Foster with a point to prove after some unflattering reviews for the Birmingham goalkeeper’s performance in England’s 2-1 friendly defeat against France last week. Foster’s list of saves, topped by the strong, left handed push to safety from Didier Drogba’s downward header from six yards was the reason for Chelsea’s latest frustration.

Chelsea’s cloak of invincibility has been ripped from them, following Sunderland’s romp at Stamford Bridge a week ago and Ancelotti knows the pressure is certainly on him to prevent the mini-crisis becoming more damaging. He expects the finger pointing and will not be losing too much sleep over it. “Obviously it can happen when the team don’t win. There is more responsibility on the coach but this is normal. This is my job. If the team is not doing a good job, it is normal to have more responsibility. I don’t have a problem and I am prepared for the criticism,” said Ancelotti.

Ancelotti’s steadfast refusal to expand upon his feelings of having Wilkins replaced by Michael Emenalo as first team coach hints at a deep-lying sense of betrayal. His insistence that the team have not been affected by it, is hard to reconcile. “This is not the reason we lost the game,” he said, but all dressing rooms that lose an influential coach and friend have to be the worse for the departure and Ancelotti has clearly been exposed and left standing alone by the club’s decision. It is not something you could imagine happening to Alex Ferguson or Mourinho. “It is a different position to Ferguson because Ferguson has total control of the team. I have just the technical direction, full stop, okay?” he said.

Chelsea have handicapped themselves unnecessarily in the 38-game race to the title, not only with the departure of Wilkins, but by considerably weakening the depth of their squad in the summer. The cast of young, unproven talent on the bench testified to that. The statistics may provide a weight of evidence to suggest they did not deserve to lose to Birmingham’s solitary effort on goal from Lee Bowyer, but it matters not. They did and Ancelotti has to find a solution before they head to Newcastle this weekend, but that will not involve rushing Terry and Frank Lampard back into action and the knee surgery Alex requires may also go ahead this week. All of a sudden there seems a fragility about the squad and uncertainty as to whether Abramovich will bankroll reinforcements in January.

If there is a decision to buy a central defender when the window opens, Chelsea could do worse than look at Birmingham’s Roger Johnson. The 27-year-old is still reaching his peak, but was immense against Drogba. He is in the Terry mould and his manager Alex McLeish still cannot believe he has not been tried by Fabio Capello. “He keeps asking me what he has to do to get a chance with England,” said McLeish. The Scot believes he may need a more “fashionable” club to realise his international ambitions. Chelsea certainly fall into that category and on the evidence of this Johnson would certainly not look out of place.