The West Ham manager Gianfranco Zola is desperate for his team to beat his old club Chelsea, and get some badly needed points to get them away from the relegation zone.
Zola said: “With all respect to Chelsea, I want to beat them very badly. We need a result and we are going to be very ’up’ for it.”
The Chelsea coach Carlo Ancelotti admits that the teams defending against set-pieces has cost his team points, but he prefers to concentrate on the good points of the Chelsea defence.
“We conceded a lot of goals in the last games but all on free-kicks. There are other things, we conceded only two in 17 matches in open play,” he said. “This is a very good record for us and we have to maintain this.
The Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti was responsible for selling the young Gianfranco Zola to Chelsea when he was in charge at Parma, and he admits that it was a mistake looking back, as Zola became an absolute legend at Stamford Bridge.
“Probably I made a mistake with him because I wanted to play 4-4-2 and I put the players in the right positions but he wanted to stay in the centre like a striker,” Ancelotti admitted.
The Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard is convinced that his team are just going through an unlucky patch at the moment, and it was just so important to take the three points away from Wednesday’s game against Portsmouth.
“It’s very important we keep picking up points and it was one of those games where the win was all that mattered,” he said.
Reports are coming in today that Chelsea are targeting the Bayern Munich winger Bastian Schweinsteiger, after his team-mate Franck Ribery has decided that he would prefer a move to Spain with Real Madrid instead of West London.
The German international is valued at a cool £25m, and the Sun says that Carlo Ancelotti sees the left-footed midfielder as a perfect fit for his attacking diamond formation as he is comfortable playing in any midfield position.
The rumours about Sergio Aguero joining Chelsea have been flying around for the last month, and been roundly denied by the young Argentinian until now.
He has at last admitted that Chelsea are after him, and says that he will fit into the team with ease.
“Chelsea are interested in me because they think I can play an important role for the team,” Aguero said. “And I think I fit with their style of play.
The Chelsea striker Nicolas Anelka has often been accused in his career of being a money-grabber, as he hand his brothers have engineered many big money moves for the Frenchman, and have pocketed many millions in signing-on (and agent’s) fees.
Today he has confirmed that he is keen to sign an extended contract at Chelsea for another three years (with a massive pay-rise of course!), and then he will move anywhere else in the world that he can get the biggest contract.
The Chelsea captain John Terry saw his team struggle to beat bottom side Portsmouth at Stamford Bridge last night, but is still confident that Chelsea are on course for the Premiership title.
“We should be further ahead at the top of the league and we only have ourselves to blame.” said Terry.
“I understand everyone feeling frustrated, our defending of set-plays was unacceptable.
The new Portsmouth boss Avram Grant was pleased with the performance of his team despite losing 2-1 to the League leaders, and he was very happy with the standing ovation given to him by Chelsea fans before the game started.
“It was touching. I think it was a great year we had here and it is heart-warming to see people respect it. The supporters and people at Chelsea, most of them are very nice, very kind, and I respect it also.”
Chelsea continued their nervous run of form with an unconvincing 2-1 win over Avram Grant’s Portsmouth, But Carlo Ancelotti thinks the team were good value for the three points.
This puts Chelsea back ahead of Man Utd in the race for the title, but Ancelotti admits that he was worried after Portsmouth were gifted a lucky equaliser.
“I am happy because it was becoming a difficult game,” he said.
