Noose still hanging over Ranieri

Claudio Ranieri is set to bid farewell to Stamford Bridge tomorrow in what seems likely to be his last game in charge of Chelsea – with a fierce debate still raging over this season’s achievements.

Ranieri has taken Chelsea to second place in the Premiership, as well as the Champions League semi-finals, in what he has described as a “great season“.

However, he is still expected to be replaced this summer, with chief executive Peter Kenyon having refused to back down from his assessment that the campaign has been a “failure“.

Officially, Ranieri’s fate may still not have been decided, but even midfielder Frank Lampard has claimed the frenetic speculation over his future had partly “undermined” the club’s progress.

The Italian will therefore acknowledge all four sides of the Stamford Bridge ground after the final whistle against Leeds tomorrow.

Ranieri wants to thank the Chelsea fans for their support during an “emotional rollercoaster” of a season – in case it is the last time he sees them.

Although he may still harbour outside hopes of staying on, he knows the writing is on the wall, with Porto boss Jose Mourinho seemingly poised to replace him after the Champions League final.

After all, Kenyon has not changed his view on this season, having announced on his arrival a few months ago that not winning a trophy would be considered as a “failure“.

When pressed further at a fans’ evening earlier this week, the Chelsea chief executive used vice-captain John Terry’s own assessment in a bid to bolster his case.

“When asked that question, I said we would have failed,” he argued.

“But I think you need to look at what John Terry said last week. He said that he, as club captain, and the rest of the team felt that they had failed this season as they hadn’t won.

“I think the reality is that every team which starts each season expects to win. Enough footballers have thrown away their runners-up medals as they are not proud of that achievement.

“We’re second in the league and have reached the semi-finals of the Champions League. That’s a very good achievement.

“Thanks to everyone who has been involved in that – the team, the backroom staff and everybody else at Chelsea.

“We’ve had a good season but we’re not where anybody at Chelsea wants us to be. That’s what we’re all working hard to achieve.”

Not that anyone apart from Kenyon and, presumably, Roman Abramovich, had realistically viewed this season as anything more than a building process – even with more than £110m (€163m) invested.

Indeed, while Terry admitted this season was “not good enough“, he had added: “We said at the start of the year that it would take time to improve. This has been an improvement, a stepping-stone.”

Carlo Cudicini has also described it as a “great season“, while Jesper Gronkjaer insisted “we’ve achieved quite a lot and moved a few steps forward as a club“.

Frank Lampard, meanwhile, also moved this week to insist that this season’s achievements had not constituted a “complete failure“.

He told Chelsea TV: “I think it’s definitely a step-up from last season, when we finished fourth. It wasn’t easy to bring in all those players and expect us to go and win it.

“You tend to forget Arsenal have done something which is pretty much impossible in going through a season unbeaten. In any other year, without their brilliance, we would have still been it now.”

Lampard added: “The players have spoken out for the boss all season and that’s because we were trying to concentrate on the league and cup and it was sort of undermining what we were doing.

“But we are players and Chelsea will carry on. It’s bigger than all of us. We’ll carry on and give our all – as we’ve done all season.”

Lampard is therefore targeting a final flourish against Leeds, for both Ranieri and the supporters.

He declared: “Rather than maybe slacking off, hopefully we can play well without any pressure. It’s always great to be at home in the last game. We’ll definitely be going out to win.”