Ancelotti tinkers and Chelsea respond in style!

The new Chelsea boss obviously either doesn’t know what his best team is, or he just thinks they are all brilliant and doesn’t know who to drop!

No wonder Chelsea websites have a “pick the team” competition, because i bet no-one could have guessed yesterdays line-up! He not only changed the team, he changed the formation, with the Christmas tree 4-3-2-1 line-up preferred to cope with the deep lying defence that was seen against Hull on Saturday.

Who would have guessed that he would have put Deco and Kalou in behind Drogba in attack? Not me for sure. And another shock was playing both Bosingwa and Ivanovic beside each other in the back line, in place of either Carvalho or Alex. Who knows who is first choice anymore! Ancelotti tried to explain his thinking after the game.

“The team changed because I have trust in these players and I think we have very good quality in the other players and I want to use them,” he said.

“We have a lot of matches and I want to maintain the players, keep them in good condition and not take the risk of having injuries.

“We changed something because Kalou doesn’t stay near Drogba, he stays a little bit behind, in the same line as Deco. This was to have more control in the midfield.

“Deco is working very well now, he is very motivated to play and this is a very important season for him before the World Cup and tonight he played very well, both for him and for the team.

“The motivation for everyone arrived because we want to do the best, not only for me, but it’s the same for the players and the club. We want to do the best work, improve and be the best.”

You have to admire the man for being brave enough to make such big changes, but did it make a difference? It cartainly did. That was probably one of the best performances for Chelsea in a long time, and the Sunderland manager Steve Bruce held his hands up and said that there was nothing his team could do about it.

“Sometimes you just have to admit that we have been beaten by a very good team, there is no disgrace in that,” said Bruce.

“We tried our utmost, gave everything we could give, but in the end we just couldn’t cope with Chelsea, the way they moved the ball, it was a very difficult evening for us.

“We all aspire to be the best, and when you see a performance like that you can understand why Chelsea will be competing in every competition this year.

“It was arguably one of the best Chelsea performances I have seen in a long time and sometimes you have to hold your hands up and say well played.”

And Hallelujah to that! With Liverpool and Man Utd both dropping points already, Chelsea have a prime chance to open up a lead at the top. If they can perform like that no matter who Ancelotti picks, Chelsea will be extremely hard to beat this season.