'I told Chelsea to sign Drogba,' says Ranieri

Claudio Ranieri has claimed it was him rather than Jose Mourinho who first broached the idea of adding Didier Drogba to Chelsea’s star-studded squad.

The Ivory Coast striker joined Chelsea from Marseille this week in a deal which reportedly cost the London club £24m (€32m).

Ranieri has now revealed how he had advised Russian owner Roman Abramovich to bring Drogba to Stamford Bridge, before the axe fell on him at the end of last season.

“I spoke with Roman to buy Drogba,” Ranieri told PA International.

“I said that he is a very good striker. He has been in the plans for a while.”

Former Porto boss Mourinho, who replaced Ranieri at Chelsea, has followed Ranieri’s lead by using Abramovich’s millions to form a team which will be expected to challenge for the Premiership and Champions League titles next season.

Mourinho has spoken about cutting back Chelsea’s squad to 24 professionals, and he has so far offloaded a number of Ranieri signings, such as Hernan Crespo and Juan Sebastian Veron, who recently joined AC Milan and Inter Milan respectively on loan deals.

Spending money is not the difficult part of being a Premiership manager, with finding the right blend of players in the team and squad more of a significant aspect of the job.

“I spoke a lot about this with Abramovich,” said Ranieri.

“I said that it is important the players are a block, that we have a good group together, and that they want to go forward.

“Because if they think that it is an airport with players coming and going, that is not good.

“It is normal at the beginning that the coach has to think which players can link well and that is very important to make a group with players like Scott Parker.

“But the money is good and it makes the football economy go round.

“I don’t know whether players move for the money. I think that it is not right if a man moves only for money, and I don’t think this is the case. They want to play, they want to have satisfaction to see how the club is with the coach

“Very few players only think of the money but they are not very good players. Top players will look at the dressing room and everything else.”

Now at Valencia, who snapped up the Italian when Rafael Benitez joined Liverpool, Ranieri remains a keen observer of events at Chelsea, a club transformed by Abramovich’s investment.

“I think that it is difficult to say what Chelsea can do now but more or less the same as under me,” he predicted.

“To win before was not easy but now Chelsea are in a position where there are higher expectations. In the past fourth (place) was fantastic because they were used to finishing sixth, eighth, but now it is different.

“Chelsea will always be among the first group of teams and that is important for the fans and Abramovich’s investment.”