Let us talk about Chelsea. The season that gone by saw them win a historic double with Ancelotti having been in his first season abroad. The team was impressive in scoring over 100 goals and defeating the rest of the top 4 while also won against Tottenham, the 4th place incumbent, at Stamford bridge.
I have always not believed that Juliano Belleti is a quality or versatile player. His sending off during the Manchester City game further depletes any remaining store of confidence I have in him. So he is leaving us for Brazil is only good news to me. That would free up a space in Midfield to bring in some quality replacement.
What I did not expect was to release Ballack and Joe Cole when both players are willing to continue to the Bridge albeit for a huge cost. Ballack's leadership and tactical nous are qualities which endear him to me.
Yet the fact that he has ended up more than 13 times on the losing finalist side shows something is missing from his game. Also he was directly in front of Iniesta during last season's champions league when Iniesta took that ill-fated swing to land the ball into Petr Cech's goal. Ballack ducked instead of rushing to close him down.
Joe Cole did not recover his form of Mourinho's second season and has paid the price for living on reputation gone by. Perhaps the next casualty of the cull from the club would be Deco. Even at the world cup he is a pale imitation of his Barcelona persona. So at 33 years old, his departure will allow Chelsea to either bring in worldclass players or exciting young talents.
Let us review the team and the formation that Chelsea deploys. With that and the list of existing personnels we can then decide what players are needed for the coming season to launch another assault at the Champions League trophy.
We play a 4-3-3 , or a 4-1-2-2-1 or 4-5-1. So 4 defenders with one holding midfielder and a target man is absolutely important. Also we play better when our wingers are on fire and can drag opposition wide to create space for Lamps and Drogba.
In goal we have Cech, Turnbull and Hilario. Adequate cover provided that Hilario stop impersonating clowns during games against Man City.