Ancelotti running out of time to find right answer

CARLO ANCELOTTI has provided the soundtrack to Chelsea’s rapidly disintegrating season and once again the manager was reduced to describing his side’s predicament as “not a good moment”.

He was right. Ancelotti is again resorting to his favoured refrain, and the coach is still struggling to find a way out of another dip.

Different explanations have been offered for Chelsea’s decline this season and almost all of them are relevant. Before the turn of the year, a prematurely overhauled squad and the departure of Ray Wilkins, the assistant manager, were plausible reasons for the downturn.

Then, after two scoreless games with Fernando Torres in the side, the lack of form and fitness of the £50m forward and the changes in formation required to integrate him were held up as significant problems.

Torres was cup-tied on Saturday so that particular excuse was invalid when attempting to explain Chelsea’s exit from the FA Cup. He will be back tomorrow when Ancelotti and his team fly out to face FC Copenhagen in the first leg of their Champions League tie for a game when there will be no excuse if last season’s double winners falter.

Phil Neville’s decisive penalty kick that settled Saturday’s shoot-out ensured that time is fast running out on Chelsea’s season.

The Premier League title looks beyond them and they face the more pressing challenge of overhauling Tottenham, who currently lie fourth. And with the FA Cup also now a thing of the past, the Champions League remains the last piece of silverware that could realistically make its way to west London. On recent form, such a success seems highly unlikely.

Managers have exited Stamford Bridge after more successful seasons than the one Ancelotti is currently overseeing but he remains confident he will stay in a job, no matter what happens this season, and insists he certainly won’t walk away even if they suffer further disappointment in Copenhagen. “I am not here to consider my position, it is the owner that has to consider my position,” he said. “I just have to work, have to try my best. I have never quit. That is not me.”

Attempting to diagnose his side’s problems, he added: “I have said a lot of times, we have lost confidence in our play, sometimes it is difficult to move on, sometimes we have no continuity in our play, so this is the reason we have for these results.”

Chelsea certainly looked like a side lacking self-belief, even though Didier Drogba offered his best performance for several weeks. Frank Lampard appears out of sorts and he had missed a number of chances before finally putting the home side ahead at the end of the first period of extra time.

That should have been enough but Everton had competed impressively all afternoon and Leighton Baines’s last minute free-kick — a superb effort — summed up their application.

The visitors’ tenacity continued through the penalty shoot-out, while Chelsea’s nerve once again left them, Nicolas Anelka and Ashley Cole failing from 12 yards.

How Ancelotti must have envied David Moyes. The Everton manager described his side’s defeat at Bolton six days previously as the worst performance of his nine years at the club and the response of his players was commendable.

“I think anyone who is the manager of a club that produced that performance last Sunday would be upset,” said Neville. “He made us sit through the video in the week and we didn’t realise ourselves until then how poor it was.

“This could be the springboard. We’ve got a big game against Sunderland.

“In the league we’ve played well against the big clubs but then faltered and let ourselves down. We’ve set the standard now and we mustn’t drop below that.’’

Subs for Chelsea: Essien for Mikel 46, Anelka for Malouda 91, Zhirkov for Kalou 111.

Subs for Everton: Bilyaletdinov for Cahill 70, Anichebe for Backford 80, Heitinga for Osman 95.