Source: Team_Talk
Title joy shakes off shadow of Mourinho
TEAMtalk feels Chelsea have finally shaken off the shadow of Jose Mourinho following their crowning glory in the Premier League title race.[LNB] It has taken three years, four managers and countless millions of pounds paid in compensation, but Chelsea have finally shaken off the shadow of Mourinho.[LNB]Though the Special One has still done his very best this season to send a reminder to Roman Abramovich about just what he is missing, surely no one at Stamford Bridge is now harking back to the Mourinho era.[LNB]Not only do Chelsea have the Premier League title in the bag but few would bet against Carlo Ancelotti going one better that Mourinho managed and taking the Blues to an unprecedented - for this club at least - Double.[LNB]There is another factor that may make the Ancelotti era remembered more fondly by Chelsea fans than Mourinho's, and that is the style with which they have won.[LNB]Under Mourinho, Chelsea were a functional unit with strength in abundance and pragmatism valued far more highly than entertainment.[LNB]Now, with many of the same players as Mourinho had, Chelsea are still fearsomely strong but are earning plenty of plaudits from neutral admirers too, as their final-day 8-0 thrashing of Wigan demonstrated.[LNB]Their seven-goal hammerings of Sunderland, Aston Villa and particularly Stoke, who never usually lie down for any side, were breathtaking.[LNB]The remarkable thing is that Ancelotti has achieved all of this and yet hardly spent anything in the transfer market: Yuri Zhirkov is a decent enough player but hardly a superstar while the other arrival in the summer was Daniel Sturridge, clearly a signing for the future.[LNB]Yet rewind just a few weeks and it looked as though Mourinho's Inter Milan side had wounded Chelsea so severely by knocking them out of the Champions League that they would never recover during this campaign.[LNB]Ancelotti's leadership and even future at the club were questioned and it took a showdown meeting with the players after that defeat for the coach to re-establish his authority and pick the team up again.[LNB]There was also a pivotal moment in that meeting when the senior players suggested that Ancelotti's formation was denying the midfielders, particularly Frank Lampard, the freedom to get into goalscoring positions.[LNB]The results of that meeting speak for themselves. In the last nine matches, including today's Wigan game, they won no fewer than eight.[LNB]And for a team that under Mourinho made a speciality of grinding out 1-0 wins, they now top the scoring charts in the Premier League.[LNB]This has not been a season where Chelsea have utterly dominated, as they did in Mourinho's first two seasons, because Manchester United and Arsenal have both kept pace almost to the end.[LNB]It is perhaps more of an achievement, though, for Ancelotti to have faced crisis points in the season - the 3-1 defeat at Wigan, the Carling Cup quarter-final shock by Blackburn, and not least the Inter result - and still kept the team on course for the Double.[LNB]Portsmouth in the FA Cup stand between Chelsea and ultimate glory; but it is unthinkable that the south coast crisis club can upset the odds.[LNB]Ancelotti would then join Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger as the only managers to have done the Double in the Premier League era - something for Mourinho to think about when he comes to choosing his next coaching job.[LNB]Even more worrying for Chelsea's rivals is that Abramovich may now be persuaded that it's time to get his chequebook out again. Neither Ferguson nor Wenger has the sort of funds available that Ancelotti may be able to draw upon.[LNB]Yes, the Mourinho era can now be forgotten - but perhaps the Ancelotti era has just dawned.
