As it looks as though Carlo Ancelotti’s tenure as Chelsea manager is coming to an end after our exit from the Champions League and failure to win any trophies there are a number of candidates that have already been tipped to take over from the Italian.
It was recently reported that the players have asked Roman Abramovic for a “dream management team” of Jose Mourinho manager and Guus Hiddink as sporting director.
Although both are already contracted with Real Madrid and Turkey respectively, both already have a connection to Chelsea from their times as manager, and it has also been widely reported that Jose and Abramovich have buried the hatchet that saw the Portuguese manager leave, and ever since the Chelsea Inter Milan Champions League match last season, the pair have been in constant contact.
Both would obviously be favoured choices by both the players and fans as both were adored by all when at the club and both were successful in their times at the club. However it may be hard to obtain either as they already have contracts with other clubs, furthermore Jose seems to have his heart set on taking over from Sir Alex Ferguson once he retires.
There are other managers that have been put into the hat to take over from Carlo, Frank Rijkaard has been included on the list, a name which may be favourable to Roman’s desires of European success and attractive football as he won the Champions League with Barcelona, playing attractive football that truly was pleasing to the eye.
Another manager that has recently offered Roman his services was World Cup winning manager Marcello Lipp,i who wants to come out of retirement and has already expressed his desire to work in the Premier League, and that he would welcome the challenges of the Chelsea job. Other names have been included on bookies list of potential managers including; Marco Van Basten, Didier Deschamps, Martin O’Neil, Andre Villas-Boas, Pep Guardiola and even Rafa Benitez.
The long shots are ex players like Gianfranco Zola, Roberto Di Matteo and Gus Poyet, who all would obviously be fans favourites as managers although none of them have enough experience yet, so to choose them would potentially cause more problems as we are a team that need, and to a certain extent expect, instant success. Therefore going for an unproven manager would in my mind, be extremely unlikely.
The obvious choice would be to bring back either Hiddink or Mourinho, however the Turkish FA have already said they would not welcome any approaches for Hiddink. As either would be unlikely, Roman must go for someone that has proven success and can bring on the next generation of Chelsea players.
Therefore, I feel Deschamps would be the perfect choice as he has shown at both Monaco and Marseille has can create a good team spirit and having got Monaco to the Champions League final a few seasons ago, and having won the league with Marseille after 18 years without winning it.
Having been France captain he’s also showed he is a leader, and during his time as Juventus boss he showed he was capable of managing big egos as players like Del Piero and Buffon were present in a team playing in Serie B. He also has experience winning the Champions League as a player with both Marseille and Juventus, and also was the World Cup winning captain with France.
To further add to his already favourable CV for Chelsea, supporters must look at his time as a Chelsea player where he helped guide us to winning the FA Cup, which shows he has experience and knowledge of the club, and would already have some knowledge of Chelsea’s history and culture that is present.
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